Shadow AI – Unregulated Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools
The use of artificial intelligence in organizations is often not introduced through a decision by management or the IT department, but through employees' everyday work habits as they seek to simplify and improve the efficiency of their work.
The use of artificial intelligence tools, and artificial intelligence more broadly, rarely becomes part of an organization's operations as a result of a decision by management or the IT department. Instead, it is typically introduced through employees' everyday work practices as they simply seek to perform their tasks more efficiently.
One employee uses ChatGPT to translate a document. Another asks Gemini to summarize a contract. Someone uploads internal communications into Claude, while another relies on an AI agent to prepare an entire assignment.
The issue is not the use of artificial intelligence itself. The real problem arises when an organization has no visibility into whether an AI tool has been used, which tool was used, what data was entered into it, or what subsequently happened to that data.