Amazon Warns Employees Not to Use GenAI Tools
Amazon clamped down on employee use of third-party generative AI tools, according to internal memos obtained by Business Insider.
“While we may find ourselves using GenAl tools, especially when it seems to make life easier, we should be sure not to use it for confidential Amazon work,” the company warned employees in a recent email. “Don’t share confidential Amazon, customer, or employee data when using 3rd party GenAl tools. Generally, confidential data would be data that is not publicly available.”
According to an internal policy obtained by Business Insider, Amazon restricts employee use of third-party generative AI tools like ChatGPT due to concerns about data ownership. The policy warns that companies providing these services may claim ownership or licensing rights over any content employees input, potentially including emails, internal documents, and pre-launch materials.
“This means that any outputs such as email, PRFAQs, internal wiki pages, code, confidential information, documentation, pre-launch, and strategy materials may be extracted, reviewed, used, and distributed by the owners of the generative Al,” the policy states. “All Amazonians must abide by our standard Amazon policies for confidential information and security for any inputs to generative Al.”
Following the path of Samsung and Apple who banned ChatGPT and similar offerings, Amazon has become the latest major corporation to restrict its employees from using third-party generative AI tools for work-related tasks.
Some of these companies are particularly sensitive about using this technology as their competitor Microsoft invested heavily in OpenAI and can claim the rights to the model’s results. But at a point, even Microsoft took away the in-house tool from its employees briefly.
Amazon’s spokesperson, Adam Montgomery, said the company has been developing generative AI and large machine learning models for a long time, and employees use its AI models every day.
“We have safeguards in place for employee use of these technologies, including guidance on accessing third-party generative AI services and protecting confidential information,” Montgomery said.
