Worker Fired for Using AI at Work Wins 46,000 Yuan

A Beijing court has ruled that an insurance company illegally fired an employee for uploading a work spreadsheet to an AI tool, ordering it to pay her more than 46,000 yuan, according to China Central Television.

The woman, surnamed Wu, worked in the company's legal department, handling compliance audits and risk checks, and had signed several confidentiality agreements. In July 2024, to speed up a presentation and some data analysis, she uploaded a table of audit issues, which she had sorted and edited herself, to a third-party AI platform.

A month later, the company terminated her contract for "seriously violating information security and related rules." It also withheld her performance bonus for that month and her annual bonus for the year. The insurer said the table was highly confidential information and that she had leaked company secrets.

Wu disagreed. The tool, she said, had been recommended several times by her department head and her direct supervisor. The file contained no sensitive information, and the company suffered no loss.

A labor arbitration committee sided with her. Both sides then took the case to court.

The judges found that the company's own rules required intent to leak before such a penalty could apply, and they found no such intent. The insurer had confidentiality and information security rules, but it had never banned third-party AI tools or trained staff on how to use them. It also failed to prove the table was confidential, or that the upload had caused any actual loss.

"Her subjective purpose was to work more efficiently and make a PPT," said Chai Xu, a judge at the Chaoyang District People's Court. "Her leaders had also recommended that third-party AI tools could really improve our efficiency, so she uploaded the file."

The court revoked the termination notice, ordered the company to keep employing Wu, and told it to pay more than 46,000 yuan in lost wages, bonus shortfalls and other payments. The insurer appealed and lost. The ruling is now in effect.

Chai said companies must issue clear rules and grade how secret their documents are. "We want to use AI to assist our work, but we also have to tell employees what is strictly forbidden from being uploaded to AI platforms," he said. Only then, he added, can AI "truly empower" daily work.

The court also urged workers to be careful. Anything clearly marked as confidential or a trade secret should not be uploaded to a third-party AI platform just for convenience.