An open book on a cabin windowsill in morning light, the light falling through the window across the post

DIY resources · Your AI assistant

What never goes into an AI tool?

When in doubt, leave it out.

48.3725° N114.1817° W

Some things should never go into an AI tool, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. This is the short list from our workshops.

What you type goes to the company that runs the tool and is kept on its computers. Depending on your settings, it may be used to train the tool, and people there may read some of it.

Go ahead

Drafting emails and notices, summarizing public documents, brainstorming and planning.

Never paste in, in any tool

Customer, client or patient records: your customer list, contact details, addresses, job or order history, invoices and what people owe
Social Security numbers, birth dates, ID or account numbers, card or bank details
Health or medical information
Staff matters: reviews, complaints, hiring decisions, pay
Passwords, login codes, and how to get into your systems
Anything confidential or legal, and other people's private information

Nothing on this list goes in, even with the name changed.

Connecting an app is the same as pasting everything in it. If your mail or files hold what is on this list, do not connect them.

The first line is about your records: the lists, files and histories you keep. One message is different. One customer email is fine once you take out the name, address, phone number and email address, and write "Person A" instead. When in doubt, leave it out.

A quick test

If you wouldn't want it read out loud in a room full of people, don't paste it.

Always

Read everything it writes before you use it.
You make the decisions, not the tool.
Say when AI helped.

The rule under all of it

Your AI assistant drafts. You decide. Do the sending, posting and filing yourself.

If you work in health care, law, tax or finance, your trade has its own rules about records. Those come first. This list does not replace them.

From Mark Ulett's AI workshops: the handout and slides of October 6, 2026. BeargrassAI, Columbia Falls, Montana. First posted November 9, 2026.

Build your own site, then we host it.

The kit walks you through building your site. It comes with six months of hosting and the editor, a domain, and Scout and the Directory.

$899 for six months, then $149 a month. The kit needs a paid Claude plan, priced separately.

See what comes with DIY

Talk to your AI about this

Copy this and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or whatever you use. It brings this page with it, and tells your AI where to read the rest.

I'm reading a how-to page from BeargrassAI: What should I never paste into an AI tool? (https://beargrassai.com/diy/resources/never-paste/). Help me do what this page says, for my own business.

Read the page before you answer. Open the link yourself; do not guess what it says, and tell me if it will not open. The page's words are also pasted under this prompt.

How to help:
- Go through the page in its own order, one step at a time, and wait for me after each one.
- Where the page gives words to copy, use them as written. Change them only to fit my business, and show me what you changed.
- If a menu or a name on my screen is different from what the page says, say so and help me find the right one.
- Do not ask me to paste customer records, passwords, account numbers, or health or staff matters.
- Say so if a step needs a paid plan, or cannot be done in the tool I am using.
- You draft. I check it, and I send it.
- This page is a list, not steps. Before I show you anything, remind me to describe it, not paste it. When I describe something, tell me whether it is on the list.

First, ask me which AI tool I am using (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or another) and what my business does. Wait for my answers. Do not guess.

Then walk me through it. At the end, tell me in plain words:

One. What is now set up or written.
Two. What I still have to do myself.
Three. Anything you could not check.

If I ask about BeargrassAI itself, first read its page for AI tools: https://beargrassai.com/llms.txt

Nothing is sent anywhere. It goes to your clipboard.