Shadow AI: the tools your approval process has missed
Unapproved AI use can expose business data and give agents excessive access. Start by understanding the work people are trying to do.
The cover image is an AI-generated editorial illustration. Screens and documents are illustrative concepts.
Shadow AI is AI use that happens outside the organisation’s approval or oversight. It can be a personal chatbot account, a browser extension or an assistant connected to company documents. The tool may be useful. The business may still have no clear answer about what it can read, retain or change.
That gap deserves attention without assuming employees are acting maliciously. If an approved tool cannot do the job, people have a reason to look elsewhere. A policy needs to address the work as well as the risk.
The account and the access matter
A product name is not enough to assess the situation. Ask which account is being used, which settings apply and what data or systems it can reach. Do not assume every free service trains on submitted content, or that every enterprise subscription makes all uses acceptable. Check the relevant terms and configuration.
For an assistant that only receives pasted text, the immediate question is what gets submitted and where it goes. An agent connected to files, email or business systems raises another question: what can it do with that access?
The same tool can be appropriate for public information and inappropriate for a confidential contract. Approval should make that distinction clear.
Build a picture from several sources
Ask teams which tasks they use AI for. Compare the answers with application inventories and available technical evidence. A candid discussion can explain why a tool is useful; a device inventory can reveal a tool nobody thought to mention.
Neither is complete. An installed application does not prove how it was used, and a managed-device control does not establish what happened on a personal phone. Record those limits rather than presenting a partial inventory as full visibility.
For businesses using CrowdStrike, its current AI security documentation is a starting point for evaluating discovery and protection. Test the coverage of your own tools before relying on it.
Give people a workable choice
Identify the uses you can approve, the ones that need tighter access and the ones you cannot accept. Provide an alternative where possible. A prohibition may be necessary for a particular service or data type, but it should come with an explanation and a route to request help.
For agents, limit access to what the task requires. Being approved to draft a document should not automatically grant permission to send it to customers or alter the source records.
Then test the controls and assign someone to maintain them. Our practical Shadow AI guide explains how to connect those decisions to discovery, enforcement and response. The goal is to let the business use AI with a clear understanding of what it is allowing.
