AI-generated editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.
Two-thirds of 25,000 UK workers surveyed by Deloitte have used generative AI for work, while nearly a third of those users said their employers did not know about it, according to TechRadar. The findings point to widespread “shadow AI,” in which employees use tools that their organizations have not approved or managed.
Hidden AI Adoption
Undisclosed use can include employees choosing familiar public AI services over company-provided tools, or turning to AI when their employer offers no approved option. Workers may see this as a straightforward way to complete tasks faster, but secrecy complicates decisions about oversight, accountability and how AI-assisted work should be credited.
Company Data at Risk
A separate PagerDuty survey cited by TechRadar found that 88% of workers had shared work-related information with public AI systems. The reported inputs included emails or correspondence from 43% of workers, meeting notes from 40%, customer information from 34%, and sensitive business material such as financial data or confidential documents from 31%.
Those figures make the issue broader than whether employees disclose productivity gains. Information entered into an unapproved chatbot may fall outside an employer’s security controls, creating potential exposure for customer records and internal company data.
Trust and Policy Gap
Employees also appear skeptical of workplace AI governance. PagerDuty reported that 72% believed they understood AI better than their organizations’ technology teams, while 77% said company restrictions were limiting their professional development. That divide can encourage workers to bypass controls they consider impractical or outdated.
The source does not detail what policies were in place at the surveyed organizations, so the results do not show whether undisclosed use violated explicit rules in every case. They do indicate that employee adoption has moved ahead of formal approval in many workplaces.
Workers Pay the Bill
Deloitte’s research also estimated that British workers spend £958 million of their own money each year on generative AI tools used for work. Personal subscriptions give employees another route around corporate procurement and oversight, leaving employers with limited visibility into which services handle business information.
SIGNAL TITANS
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