Shadow AI is already inside the company. Here's what the 2025 breach data says.
IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach report puts numbers on a risk most security teams can't yet see: AI tools nobody approved.
People adopt AI faster than companies can govern it. Microsoft and LinkedIn's 2024 Work Trend Index found that 75% of knowledge workers already use generative AI at work, and 78% of those users bring their own tools.
IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025 shows what that costs:
- One in five organisations reported a breach caused by shadow AI.
- Organisations with high levels of shadow AI saw breach costs $670,000 higher on average.
- Only 37% have policies to manage AI or detect shadow AI.
- Of the organisations that suffered an AI-related breach, 97% had no AI access controls in place.
Why the usual controls miss it
Network filters and browser extensions were built for websites. Today's AI also lives in desktop apps, coding agents, background helpers and models running entirely on the laptop. If it never touches the browser, a browser tool never sees it.
What good looks like
- Inventory first. You can't govern AI you can't see. Start with a list of every AI tool on every PC.
- Policy at the endpoint. Decide per tool and per kind of data: allow, ask first, or block.
- Evidence by default. Keep a record of which AI ran and which controls fired, without collecting what people typed.
That's the job Senture was built for.
Put the AI on your PC on a leash.
Senture is free for individuals on Windows and macOS.