Senior executives abuse shadow AI twice as much as regular employees do

Shadow IT has long been a major problem for IT leaders, but the biggest problem may be coming from the executive suite’s hunger for unsanctioned AI.

Nearly two-thirds of senior decision-makers admit to using unapproved AI tools, compared to just 31% of lower-level employees, according to a survey by Microsoft solutions partner TrustedTech.

The use of shadow AI is prevalent among senior executives even though three in four employees acknowledge security or data privacy risks related to the practice.

“Most shadow AI users are not ignorant of the risk,” TrustedTech says in a white paper. “They are deliberately choosing to use these tools anyway. This is not a training issue. It is a culture, incentives, and alternatives issue.”

In many cases, the problem is driven by a lack of approved tools, the report adds.

“People use shadow AI because what their employer hands them is worse than mainstream AI tools, or because nothing has been approved in the first place,” the report says. “That doesn’t change until the sanctioned tools are genuinely worth using.”

A question of authority

The use of shadow AI by CEOs and other C-suite executives can create major problems for CIOs, CISOs, and other IT executives because they may not have the authority to put the kibosh on it.

It also presents a challenge for IT leaders to provide the AI tools that employees and executives want to use.

When executives use shadow AI, CIOs are in a difficult position, because governance only works when it’s modeled from the top, says Andy Nolan, VP of technology at TrustedTech.

“If senior leaders bypass approved AI tools or policies, it sends an implied message that speed matters more than security and compliance,” he adds. “Employees notice that behavior, and it becomes much harder to ask the rest of the organization to follow standards that leadership isn’t following themselves, first.”

Another major problem is that executives often work with highly sensitive information, including financial data, strategic plans, intellectual property, and customer information, he notes.

But CIOs and CISOs also can’t solve the problem by becoming the AI police in every situation, Nolan says, because their role is to help the business innovate safely.

“That requires executive alignment, clear governance, and providing secure AI tools that people actually want to use,” he adds. “When leadership embraces those solutions, the rest of the organization is almost sure to follow.”

All risk, no reward

The use of shadow AI by senior executives puts CIOs and CISOs in an impossible position, agrees Amit Maloo, CISO at AI procurement provider Ivalua. CIOs and CISOs are held accountable for the risk exposure but have no visibility into the problem, he says.

“When senior leaders use ungoverned AI tools for business decisions, those decisions still have consequences, such as financial commitments, contract reviews, and data sharing,” he adds. “But there is no audit trail, no permissions model, or no way to reconstruct what happened or why.”

Part of the problem is that approved AI options often don’t meet the needs of users, Maloo says.

“AI policies alone aren’t enough; organizations need to pair governance with usability,” he adds. “If approved AI tools don’t meet the pace of business, employees at every level, including leadership, will find their own solutions. Successful organizations will be those that make the secure path the easiest path.”

IT leaders can’t solve the problem with more governance, he notes. “Policies and restrictions slow shadow AI down, but they don’t stop it, especially when the people using it are senior enough to absorb the disciplinary risk,” Maloo adds. “What CIOs can do is focus on providing tools that grant users full access to the necessary systems and data, eliminating the need to choose between a capable but ungoverned tool and a safe but limited one.”

Speed over security

The TrustedTech data echoes a June report from employee monitoring software vendor Teramind, which found that more than two-thirds of C-level executives prioritize speed over security when using AI tools, notes Nik Kale, a principal engineer and product architect at Cisco, and member of the Coalition for Secure AI.

In addition, the Teramind report found that two-thirds of enterprise AI activity runs through personal accounts on platforms for which the company already owns licenses, he notes.

“People are paying for the governed version and using the ungoverned version of the same product, so the problem isn’t the tools,” he says. “The approved path is slower, buried in procurement, or disconnected from where the work actually happens, and speed wins every time under a deadline.”

The problem then isn’t with the AI tools, but with the friction involved, he says. “People aren’t going around the front door because the room is locked,” Kale adds. “They’re going around it because the front door is slower.”

In many cases, the use of shadow AI exposes a couple of shortcomings in enterprise processes, adds Matthew Scavetta, chief technology innovation officer at IT solutions provider Future Tech Enterprise.

Many organizations don’t do a good job of making employees aware of the AI tools available to them, he says, and many organizations don’t offer training on the sanctioned applications, which drives users to pick products they are familiar with.

“If you don’t solve problems for people quickly or make people aware of which tools they can use safely, they will find a workaround,” he adds. “AI tools are no different than anything else.”

Shadow AI use by executives puts IT leaders in an incredibly difficult position, he says.

“CIOs, in particular, are under more and more pressure each year to keep up with what’s possible as tech influencers keep preaching about the potential of these tools,” Scavetta says. “CEOs and board members are constantly getting swept up in the hype; meanwhile, there are more and more case studies coming out showing how little ROI some organizations have realized. It’s a never-ending game of balancing possible with practical.”