Understanding the risk

Shadow AI is already inside your teams.

Your employees use ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini on confidential documents, with or without your approval. This is not a hypothesis. These are the numbers.

The numbers

Shadow AI in data.

Sources: IBM, Microsoft, Cyberhaven, Software AG, UpGuard : 2024-2025.

80%

of employees use AI tools not approved by their organization

Awareways Trend Report, 2025

38%

of employees admit sharing sensitive information with AI without authorization

IBM / Infosecurity Magazine, 2024

27.4%

of data copied into AI tools is sensitive corporate data

Cyberhaven, 2024

46%

of employees would continue using AI even if their organization explicitly banned it

Software AG, study of 6,000 knowledge workers

+$670K

additional average cost per Shadow AI security incident

IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, 2025

65%

of Shadow AI incidents involved personal data (PII) : the rest: intellectual property

IBM, 2025

The paradox

Banning it doesn't work.

What organizations do

Block access to ChatGPT on the corporate network
Send an acceptable-use policy by email
Ban AI use on confidential documents
Wait for IT to deploy an official solution

What actually happens

Employees use their phone or personal connection
46% would continue even after an explicit ban
Sensitive documents still reach third-party AI tools
The risk becomes invisible, and unmanageable

"Shadow AI has emerged as one of the most pressing challenges facing organizations in 2025. More than half of employees use generative AI tools : yet only 55% of enterprises have formal policies governing their use."

Harmonic Security, 2025

What goes into AI tools

What data is exposed?

According to Cyberhaven, of the 27.4% of sensitive data sent to AI tools, here is the breakdown by type.

16.3%

Customer and support information

12.7%

Source code and intellectual property

10.8%

R&D data and patents

65%

of incidents involve personal data (PII)

Most exposed sectors

Law firms M&A & due diligence Finance & audit Human resources Legal departments Consulting

Regulation

The AI Act: a concrete deadline.

August 2026

The European AI Act imposes transparency, documentation and risk-management obligations for high-risk AI systems. The compliance deadline is approaching.

Using ChatGPT or Claude on client documents without a protection layer or audit trail exposes your organization to growing regulatory risk : on top of data leakage risk.

The solution

Secure without blocking.

The right answer to Shadow AI is not a ban : it's securing usage. Your teams will keep using AI. The challenge: sensitive data must never leave in plain text.

Pseudonymise first

Safe-Doc replaces sensitive data with neutral tokens before any AI submission. 90+ entity types, 6 countries.

Use AI freely

Your teams keep using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot : on a pseudonymised version. Safe-Doc never sees the AI query.

Restore and audit

Local reinjection of original data into the result. Audit report on every operation. Zero storage on Safe-Doc's side.

Join the Beta

See how it works →

Sources

IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report, 2025
Microsoft & LinkedIn Work Trend Index, 2024
Cyberhaven Data Loss Report, 2024
Software AG Shadow AI Study, 2024 (6,000 knowledge workers)
Awareways Shadow AI Trend Report, 2025
UpGuard Shadow AI Report, November 2025
Harmonic Security, 2025