The moment you put a camera and a microphone into someone's working day, you've taken on a serious responsibility. The technology to capture everything is trivial. The discipline to capture only what's needed, protect it properly, and be honest about all of it — that's where trust is won or lost.
Key takeaways
- Capture the minimum that serves the purpose, not everything the hardware can technically record.
- Where data is processed, who can see it, and how long it's kept are the first questions any serious buyer asks.
- Using customer data to train shared models should be off by default — and clearly stated.
01Data minimisation as a design choice
The responsible default is to capture the least that still does the job. If a task needs a photo of a component, it doesn't need a continuous recording of the whole shift. Scope the capture to the purpose and a whole category of risk disappears.
This is a design decision, not an afterthought. It shapes what the hardware records, what leaves the device, and what's ever stored — and it's far easier to build in from the start than to bolt on later.
Trust in workplace AI isn't earned by capturing everything safely. It's earned by not capturing what you never needed.
02The questions buyers actually ask
Enterprise procurement doesn't ask whether your AI is impressive. It asks where data is processed, who can access it, how long it's retained, whether it trains anyone else's models, and how permissions and logging work.
Every one of those deserves a straight answer. 'It depends on the deployment' is fine — as long as you can then explain exactly what it depends on. Vagueness reads as risk.
03Honesty about what you don't have yet
A young company won't have every certification a global enterprise eventually wants. Pretending otherwise is both dishonest and fragile — one informed question and the credibility is gone.
The stronger position is to be precise: which standards you build against, which measures are already in place, and which enterprise requirements you implement per project. Buyers respect that far more than an invented seal.