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Shadow AI

What Is Shadow AI?

What began with employees pasting text into ChatGPT has expanded into a much broader surface: AI features embedded in everyday SaaS tools, agents that can browse and act on a user's behalf, and MCP-connected integrations installed with a single click. The result is a governance blind spot at a much larger scale than most organizations realize.

Key Concerns

Compliance Risk: unapproved AI use can violate data handling, privacy, and industry-specific regulations without anyone noticing until an audit.
Sensitive Data Exposure: employees routinely paste, upload, or connect sensitive data to tools with no enterprise safeguards.

FAQ

Related concept, narrower scope. Shadow IT covers any unapproved software; Shadow AI is specifically about AI tools, which tend to spread faster and expose more sensitive data per interaction than typical shadow IT.

More common than most security teams assume, the gap between what leadership believes is in use and what employees are actually using is usually significant, and it grows as AI features get embedded directly into everyday tools rather than requiring a separate sign-up.

Building an accurate AI Inventory. You can’t govern what you can’t see.

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Related Terms

AI Inventory

An AI inventory is the complete, actively maintained record of every AI tool, model, and agent in use across an organization, including the ones IT never approved.

AI Acceptable Use Policy

An AI Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) sets clear guidelines for how employees, contractors, and partners can responsibly use AI tools and agents at work, including what's approved, what data can be shared, and who's accountable when something goes wrong.

Is Shadow AI the same as Shadow IT?

How common is Shadow AI?

What’s the first step to addressing Shadow AI?

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