GDPR and AI Assistants: What Business Owners Need to Know

As soon as an AI assistant handles customer inquiries, it typically processes personal data: names, contact details, sometimes the content of the inquiry itself. That means GDPR applies — regardless of how small the business is.

The most important point for business owners: if you use a third-party provider for your AI assistant, you're generally the data controller and the provider is the processor. Concretely, that means a data processing agreement (DPA) under Art. 28 GDPR has to be in place — not an optional extra, but a legal requirement.

A second point that's often overlooked: where is the data actually processed? Many AI providers use infrastructure outside the EU. That's not automatically forbidden, but it makes things more complicated (standard contractual clauses, extra due-diligence duties). Simpler — and often more convincing to customers — is a provider that processes exclusively within the EU from the start.

A third point concerns deletion: customers have the right to request that their data be deleted (Art. 17 GDPR). A good AI assistant should support that technically — not as a manual special process, but as a built-in feature.

A good rule of thumb: ask every provider directly about their DPA and where processing happens before you decide. You'll recognize an honest answer by how specific it is — not by marketing phrases like "GDPR-compliant".