According to UpGuard’s late-2025 report, nearly 90 percent of security professionals use unapproved AI tools at work. The people responsible for enforcing security policy are, by their own admission, ignoring it. More than 80 percent of workers across all roles use unsanctioned AI, and executives are the most prolific offenders.
We’ve been here before. A decade ago, the fight was over shadow IT — personal Dropbox accounts, unapproved SaaS apps, data flowing through tools that never passed a security review. Most organizations eventually got that under control with CASBs, discovery tooling, and better-sanctioned alternatives.
