Employees Aren’t Disclosing Their Secretive ‘Shadow AI’ Usage At Work And Employers Need To Find Out Why

In today’s column, I examine several crucial reasons employees often fail to disclose that they are using AI to aid their work efforts. This is occurring a lot more than most companies realize. It is a phenomenon referred to as “shadow AI”, meaning that AI usage is happening in the shadows and not being explicitly noted or acknowledged by AI-dependent workers.

Your first thought might be that this is perfectly fine if the workers are getting their jobs done. Whether they use AI or wave a magic wand, the crucial consideration is that work is taking place, and progress is being made. That’s not as rosy as it might seem. Lots of downsides exist when employees secretly rely on AI to perform part of or possibly even the entirety of their job. Leadership needs to mindfully shift their organization away from shadow AI and make sure that AI usage is taking place in the proper light.

Let’s talk about it. This analysis of AI breakthroughs is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage of the latest in AI, including identifying and explaining key AI complexities (see the link here).

AI Usage In Companies

Modern firms have been rushing to adopt AI. Sometimes this pell-mell urgency is undertaken without due diligence on whether AI usage makes sense, nor whether it is even adding to the productivity or effectiveness of the workers. Leaders can get caught up in a race to beat the Joneses. You see, if other companies are making use of AI, by gosh, so should their firm.

There are two broad ways to categorize AI use in organizations:

• (1) Aboveboard use of AI. This is where AI is being used in the open, and the firm realizes that AI is being employed.
• (2) Under-the-table use of AI. This is variously known as shadow AI, whereby workers lean into AI but try to hide the usage so that no one realizes what is going on.

When AI Use Goes Awry

Under-The-Table AI Usage

Shadow AI Prevalence

AI Usage Backfires On Workers

Let’s explore various reasons why workers hide their use of under-the-table AI.