Configuring an AI assistant: instructions, scope, authorised data

What the guide to configuring an AI assistant contains

• A scoping sheet: purpose, users, authorised and excluded tasks, authorised and prohibited data, verification level.
• An instruction template in seven blocks: role, audience, authorised tasks, excluded tasks, sources, caution, confidentiality and security.
• A checklist for reference documents: selection, removal of unnecessary personal data, dating, replacement of versions.
• Settings: exclusion from model training, restricted sharing, history retention, limited connectors, human validation of external actions.
• A test protocol in five categories, including manipulated instructions and prohibited data.
• Finally, the rules for commissioning and monitoring: entry in the register, anomaly log, review at least once a year.

When to use the guide

The guide is used before configuring an AI assistant: custom assistant, shared project or internal chatbot. It is also used when the assistant is opened to external persons, informed from the outset that it is an AI. Moreover, any change to the instructions, documents or model calls for a new series of tests. It is aimed in particular at the person responsible for the use and at the function in charge of configuration.

Instructions for use

First, the person responsible for the use validates the scoping sheet before any configuration. Next, the instructions are drafted in the infinitive, completing the items in square brackets in the template. Then the reference documents are selected, dated and assigned an owner. The settings are then adjusted, with connectors in read-only mode where possible. Finally, some fifteen questions test the assistant; a non-conformity in categories 3 to 5 suspends commissioning.

Expected outcome

Configuring an AI assistant in line with this guide results in a tool confined to its purpose. It answers on the basis of the reference documents and cites its sources. It states that information is unavailable rather than filling the gap, and refuses out-of-scope requests. The configuration thus remains documented, tested and entered in the register of uses.

Key facts

Limitations

The guide assumes an adopted use charter and an open register of uses; it does not replace them. In addition, the instruction template must be adapted to each purpose. Moreover, the assistant excludes decisions concerning a person, commitments of the organisation and the assessment of a particular legal situation.

Further reading: Information Systems & Digital Transformation; Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on artificial intelligence (EUR-Lex).