Before talking about AI, it should be stopped in two basic issues that are often overlooked: where are the company’s documents really and under what laws they are managed? The majority of managers would respond quickly with known names – M365, Icloud, Google Drive – but that apparent simplicity hides a greater difficulty: loss of sovereignty about the information. It is not always possible to know exactly the location of the data, the applicable jurisdiction or the historical access to each file.
This debate is not theoretical or futuristic. In Spain and throughout the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the imminent obligation of the B2B electronic invoice and the AI acts place the documentation management in the nucleus of the business strategy. Companies that fail to align their use of the cloud and artificial intelligence with this regulatory framework run the risk of sanctions, loss of confidence and, ultimately, of competitiveness.
“In a scenario like this it is evident that the general services were not born to guarantee sovereignty. If the priority is to know where the documents reside, with what retention and what is processed, a documentary solution with integral governance is needed,” explains Gaspar Palmer, CEO of OpenKM.
Cloud with AI: Comfort against control
The comfort and agility offered by the large cloud suppliers have turned these platforms into de facto standard. However, they are designed for collaboration and global scalability, not to guarantee the sovereignty of the data. Faced with this, they begin to proliferate document management models with AI in sovereign cloud, which allow companies to decide in which territory the data is stored, define retention calendars, audit accesses and limit which artificial intelligence algorithms intervene in the treatment of information.
The key, OpenKM experts underline, is to integrate the AI within the security perimeter of the organization. In this way, the functions of automatic classification, semantic search or automation of documentary processes are carried out without exposing the archives to external services. This reduces the risk of leaks, increases transparency and favors regulatory compliance.
Document management models begin to proliferate with the sovereign cloud, which allow companies to decide in which territory the data is stored
How to meet the GDPR using AI
The balance between innovation and legal compliance requires a series of principles that today make a difference in audits and certifications:
- Residence and traceability: suppliers that operate within the EU, with clear documentation of managers and sub -grants.
- Legal Base and Impact Evaluations: Identify the legitimacy of the treatment and make reports when the regulations require it.
- Minimization: process only the strictly necessary, preventing the IA from collecting redundant information.
- Granular security: apply access policies by roles and profiles, with permanent audit.
- Retention: Have clear calendars of conservation and destruction of documents.
“Organizations must be able to explain transparently to customers, auditors and employees where their documents are, what regulations governs them and under what conditions are treated,” they emphasize from OpenKM.
Real case: a firm that regained control
The impact of AI applied to document management is best perceived in practical examples. A law firm with practice areas in administrative, tax, commercial and criminal worked with a mixture of cloud folders, emails and local discs. Chaos was evident: duplicities, contradictory versions and waste of time in each search.
After implementing a documentary system in Cloud Sovereign with AI, the firm restructured the information by client and matter, automated the classification of contracts, established review and signature flows, and activated retention calendars. In a few weeks, searches spent hours to minutes. The data protection delegate gained audit capacity, and the office recovered the traceability of his files.
“It’s not about whether you can adopt, but how to do it without losing control over your information,” summarizes Palmer.
