Marketing businesses ‘blind to the risks of shadow AI’

Marketing and advertising businesses are being warned about the rise of so-called “shadow AI” on the back of a new analysis which reveals that more and more professionals are going under the radar by bringing their own AI tools to work, fuelling concerns over data security and trust.

According to Telus Digital Experience, more than two-thirds (68%) of professionals who use AI at work say they access publicly available tools such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini through personal accounts without permission, and more than half (57%) have admitted to entering sensitive information into them.

Those surveyed admitted to entering a wide variety of information into public GenAI assistants, including personal data, such as names, addresses, emails and phone numbers (31%); product or project details, including unreleased details and prototypes (29%); customer information, including names, contact details, order history, chat logs, emails, or recorded calls (21%); and confidential company financial information, such as revenue, profit margins, budgets, or forecasts (11%).

This is despite nearly a third (29%) of employees acknowledging their companies have policies in place that prohibit them from inputting company, client or other sensitive information into GenAI assistants.

Regardless of the risks, many employees in the survey indicated that their company is falling short on providing them with information and training to use GenAI safely.

In fact, only 24% of employees said their company requires mandatory AI assistant training, while 44% said their company does not have AI guidelines or policies in place, or they do not know if their company does.

Meanwhile, half (50%) said they are not sure if they are adhering to their company’s AI guidelines and 42% said there are no repercussions for not following their company’s AI guidelines.

Whether they are aware of the risks or their company’s AI policies or not, the majority of employees are depending on GenAI assistants to enhance their performance at work.

Some 60% said it helps them work faster; 57% said it makes their job easier and 49% said it improves their performance.

As a result, 84% want to continue using AI assistants at work, also citing additional benefits, such as increased creativity (51%) and the ability to offload repetitive tasks (50%).

Telus Digital general manager of Fuel iX Bret Kinsella said: “Generative AI is proving to be a productivity superpower for hundreds of business tasks. Employees know this. If their company doesn’t provide AI tools, they’ll bring their own, which is problematic.

“Organisations are blind to the risks of shadow AI, even while they are secretly benefitting from productivity gains. However, providing AI tools is not enough to mitigate these risks. Employees will supplement company-provided AI with more advanced tools that are publicly available.

“Our survey shows that 22% of employees with access to a company-provided GenAI assistant still use personal GenAI accounts. A key to harnessing AI’s potential while mitigating security risks is to provide employees with GenAI capabilities that include robust security and compliance and are also easily updated with the latest AI model improvements.”