Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI

Shh, don't tell IT I'm using Claude!

The rise of shadow AI in the workplace.

Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI

By

2026-05-11T08:17:01.233Z

Gregg Bayes-Brown helped develop the AI policies at a former job in biotech research, but even as a rule maker, he says he couldn't afford to not be a rule breaker. Though he understood the technology and its risks, he used an unapproved personal enterprise Google account for work, to access NotebookLM to organize large chunks of information that would typically require lots of back and forth between customer service and other departments. He estimates the shortcut crunched 150 hours of work to 30 minutes.

As his IT department debated how to regulate AI tools for months, Bayes-Brown says, the pressure for employees to work more efficiently with AI mounted.…