Tom Scott discusses the consequences of underestimating the full impact of unregulated AI technologies in the workplace.
Whether you are for or against it, artificial intelligence (AI) can save professionals a lot of time in the workplace, as it clears tedious, time-consuming, labour-intensive tasks in a fraction of the time it would have taken a human to complete them. That is arguably one of the main reasons that the use of advanced technologies have become so popular at work in the first place.
But not every organisation permits the use of AI and if they do, it is often heavily regulated to the point that it may not give an employee the freedom to use it in the way they want to, leading to a rise in shadow IT. That is, the use of tools and technologies, often AI-powered, in a workplace setting, despite a lack of formal approval from the organisation.
“Shadow IT is the byproduct of a workforce trying to outpace its own infrastructure,” explained Tom Scott, the CEO of cloud-based work management platform Wrike. “Employees are bypassing IT not out of disloyalty, but out of a desperate need for efficiency. They are trying to hack their own productivity because their current tech stack is creating friction rather than removing it.”
He finds the disconnect happens when organisations fail to align their tech stack around the people who are actually using it, often relying on processes that look good or make sense on paper, but that ultimately don’t reflect the realities of modern-day, cross-functional, evolving teams.
He said, “If your approved systems are rigid, unintuitive or slow to respond to changing needs, employees will find workarounds. Employees are eager to work smarter and to automate repetitive tasks, but when they don’t see those capabilities in the platforms provided to them, they turn to whatever tool helps them get the job done faster.”
And by viewing it not as a workflow issue, but rather as a growing resistance to compliance, leaders may find that they are failing to see the full picture, leading to greater problems down the line.
“If your team is bypassing the tech stack, they aren’t trying to be difficult. They’re voting against the current tools. That behaviour is the loudest feedback loop you have. You can’t fix a structural gap with a policy memo. The answer isn’t to build higher walls; it’s to provide an ecosystem that actually moves as fast as your people do.”
Dangerous roads ahead
It is dangerous territory, noted Scott. Particularly from a security point of view, where someone may feel unheard and pushed into using shadow IT, immediately exposing the individual and the wider organisation to risks. “The moment data enters a shadow tool, it’s gone. You can no longer protect it,” he explained.
In using informal or unregulated tools, you create openings for threat actors to leverage vulnerabilities and strike. “They don’t need to break through an organisation’s firewall if their employees are freely feeding proprietary information into unsecured tools.”
But putting the issue of compliance aside for a moment, there are other challenges to consider, for example when people start to work outside of pre-approved systems, they effectively remove themselves from processes built on collaboration and connectivity, leading to fragmented and uninformed workflows.
“Valuable institutional knowledge gets scattered across personal accounts or untracked systems, making it impossible to capture learnings or scale best practices. Over time, this leads to confusion, frustration and burnout because people are constantly reinventing the wheel, retracing steps or struggling to find the information they need to move forward.”
It is important, he said, for organisations to recognise that, for the most part, the majority of employees using shadow IT likely do so with good intentions, as a means of working more efficiently. But if you start working in isolation, he is of the opinion that this efficiency becomes a mirage and over time employees become less aligned.
Creating safety
So, what is to be done and is there a way for organisations and employees to find a compromise? Scott believes so, explaining that “safety and speed aren’t opposites”. They can in fact work in tandem, if tech is viewed not as an obstacle, but as an enabler for advancement and innovation.
“This can look like building guardrails into the platforms employees already use or embedding AI and automation into everyday workflows, and making those tools powerful enough that employees choose them without being forced.”
He argues this approach, which doesn’t rely solely on standalone policies or fragmented oversight, can create a culture of responsibility and governance that feels natural, transparent and thrives on consistency. He added, “employees understand how decisions are made and feel confident in the results.
“We call this ‘connected intelligence’, giving AI the context it needs to work safely, and giving employees the freedom to move quickly without compromising trust. That’s how you reduce shadow IT, not with more rules, but with better systems.”
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