Shadow AI Is the New Shadow IT, but Blocking It Won't Work

Most shadow technology starts with somebody trying to get their job done.That is the part I think security teams forget when this conversation gets too policy-heavy. A user finds a faster way to summarize meeting notes. A developer tries a coding assistant that helps with boilerplate. A sales team uses an AI writing tool to clean up follow-up emails. A manager pastes a messy spreadsheet into a chatbot because they need the answer before the next meeting.From their side, this does not feel like rebellion. It feels like productivity.From the security side, it can look like sensitive data moving into tools nobody reviewed, OAuth grants nobody approved, browser extensions nobody inventoried, and business processes quietly depending on AI systems nobody can monitor.That is shadow AI.And yes, it has a lot in common with shadow IT.But I do not think the answer is to yell “no AI tools” into the void and hope employees suddenly become less curious, less busy, and less pressured to move faster.…