Shadow AI: When employees secretly use robots in the office and company data ends up on the internet

Your employees want to be productive. They want to write emails faster, translate documents instantly, and summarize long reports. So they turn to their digital friend: Artificial Intelligence. But do you know what tools they use when you're not looking?

The phenomenon is called Shadow AI. It refers to the unofficial use, not approved by the IT department, of applications such as ChatGPT, Claude or various online PDF editing tools. At Altanet Craiova we increasingly observe in the business environment how the good intentions of employees turn into security nightmares for companies.

What is Shadow AI and why is it so risky?

The term comes from the classic "Shadow IT" (when employees installed unauthorized software). The difference is that now the risk is no longer a virus, but information leakage. Shadow AI occurs when an employee, out of a desire to get the job done faster, creates a personal account on an AI platform and uses it for work tasks.

The big problem? Most free AI tools "learn" from the data they receive. If your employee uploads a list of your company's clients or a confidential contract to be "arranged" by the robot, that information leaves your secure server and ends up in the AI's public database.

The classic data leak scenario

Here's how it happens, without anyone being malicious:

• The hurried programmer: Copies a piece of proprietary source code into ChatGPT and asks: “Find the mistake in this code.” The company code is now stored externally.
• Efficient HR: Load candidate CVs into a free "AI Summarizer" to extract essential data. Personal data (GDPR) is compromised.
• Sales: I feed next year's pricing strategy into the AI ​​to ask for marketing input. The competition could theoretically access this data if the AI ​​uses it for training.

How do you manage the phenomenon? Prohibition is not the solution

Blocking access to ChatGPT will not work. Employees will use personal phones on mobile data. The solution is control and education:

• Offer secure alternatives (Enterprise): Purchase “Enterprise” licenses for AI tools (like Copilot for Microsoft 365 or ChatGPT Enterprise). These versions contractually guarantee that your data is NOT used to train the bot and remains private.
• Establish a clear usage policy: Tell employees clearly: "You are allowed to use AI for ideas and structure, but you are NOT allowed to enter names, amounts, codes, or identifying data."
• Data Anonymization: Teach them to replace "Company X LLC" with "Company A" and "Profit 1 million" with "Profit Z" before talking to the robot.

To understand the scope of the phenomenon and the exact definitions, you can consult the complete guide from IBM on what Shadow AI means and its risks.

Conclusion

Shadow AI is not going away. Employees will always look for the fastest way. Your job, as a manager, is to pave that path for them with safe tools, not to put up barriers that they will jump over anyway.

Do you want to implement an AI security policy in your company or do you need licensed and secure software solutions? Our team offers consulting and IT services for the business environment. Visit our contact page and let's turn risk into advantage.

This material is part of Altanet's educational series on digital security. Want to know what other risks you are exposed to this year? See Complete list of cyber threats in 2026.