The development of artificial intelligence (AI) has entered the corporate environment as employees report using tools for their work without formal approval from the IT department.
IBM says that increasingly reliance on personal AI tools in the workplace poses serious risks for Canadian businesses, from potential data leaks and compliance issues to losing control over sensitive business information. Shadow AI, which uses unsupervised software, costs nearly $308,000 per data breach, according to the company.
“We're only growing to the point where we can actually lock down the use of Shadow AI, enable employees and enable organizations, but we're growing through governed, governed and protected AI,” Dynaproctor, Canada's Canadian security services leader Dynaproctor said in an interview Friday.
In IBM's Shadow AI survey, 79% of full-time office workers said they use AI in their workplaces, while 25% said they rely on enterprise-grade AI tools. The rest relies on a combination of personal and employer tools (33%) or a completely personal app (21%).
IBM said that while AI tools provide organizations with the opportunity to dramatically increase productivity, technology presents new challenges, such as security threats. Despite the risks, the survey found that AI recruitment in the workplace was led by employees.
“The adoption of AI in the workplace is no longer theoretical, it's happening and it's led by employees,” IBM Canada president Deb Pimentel said in a news release. “To safely and efficiently utilize the value of AI for smarter business operations, leaders need to prioritize secure solutions, align AI with tangible business goals and develop a data-driven culture.”
Canadian workers reported that they view AI as an overwhelming tool to make it better at work. 97% agreed that AI would increase productivity in the workplace, 86% felt confident using AI, and nearly 80% said that AI could spend more time on the strategic or creative aspects of their role.
“As humans, we're going to find something that helps us evolve ourselves to be more efficient, more creative and more productive,” Proctor said. “As the proverb says, “The water flows downhill.”
Surveyors have discovered that Canadian workers believe AI can save time. Over half (55%) said that AI saved 1-3 hours a week, while 26% reported savings up to 6 hours. Approximately 61% of the employees surveyed said that AI can complete tasks faster. 43% said that AI allows for more efficient workload management, 40% said that AI can improve accuracy, and 39% said that AI can increase creativity.
Employees use AI to report and highlight profits, but only a small number of surveyed employees (29%) believe that their employers are making the most of AI. Almost half of workers (46%) said they would quit their current job because of jobs that use AI more effectively.
Proctor said he wanted businesses to invest in AI so that employees don't have to use personal devices.
“Organisations need to provide secure enterprise-grade AI tools. Otherwise, we need to fill that gap as employees, we as employees, as employees, find AI tools that our organization doesn't really want from us,” Proctor said.
She said companies are openly leaning towards AI with a proactive and collaborative approach coordination program, ensuring their confidentiality, regulatory and action requirements fill the gap between what they need and what employees expect.
Methodology
This study was conducted by Censusswide, among a sample of 4,000 full-time office workers who are not sole owners and are familiar with AI tools from the US, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. Data were collected between May 23rd and May 30th, 2025.
