Survey: AI Governance Spending Rises as Shadow AI Use Outpaces Visibility
A report from DNSFilter, The Cost of Shadow AI, finds that organizations are increasing cybersecurity budgets with AI security and governance as the top spending priority (40.3%), ahead of cloud security (25.5%). Despite this investment, employees frequently connect unapproved AI tools to corporate systems like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or SSO environments before or without notifying IT, and 20.1% of respondents reported that such connections caused a security incident. Network telemetry from DNSFilter showed actual AI vendor usage (an average of five distinct vendors per organization, 15.2% connecting to more than 10) is roughly 30 times higher than what IT professionals self-report, and only 0.75% of generative AI requests were blocked. The report highlights a governance gap: those who approve AI-related budgets are the least concerned about untracked spending, while practitioners and IT managers report greater concern about visibility and control.
Detalhes técnicos
Data comes from a survey of security professionals combined with network-level telemetry: in August 2026, DNSFilter processed 3.4 billion requests to generative AI tools from more than 43,000 organizations across North America over a two-business-day measurement window. Key findings include that 61.5% of respondents cannot confirm every security tool is properly configured, 61.8% cannot confirm every tool is actively monitored, and 46.1% reported an employee connecting an unapproved AI tool to corporate SSO/cloud environments.
Remediação
DNSFilter's CEO Ken Carnesi recommends closing the gap between who decides to connect AI tools and who owns the associated risk as the focus of future security spending, implying a need for stronger AI governance controls, monitoring, and enforcement rather than relying on self-reported AI tool inventories.
Linha do tempo
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Survey: AI Governance Spending Rises as Shadow AI Use Outpaces Visibility
ler a análise desta fonte ocultar
A report from DNSFilter, The Cost of Shadow AI, finds that organizations are increasing cybersecurity budgets with AI security and governance as the top spending priority (40.3%), ahead of cloud security (25.5%). Despite this investment, employees frequently connect unapproved AI tools to corporate systems like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or SSO environments before or without notifying IT, and 20.1% of respondents reported that such connections caused a security incident. Network telemetry from DNSFilter showed actual AI vendor usage (an average of five distinct vendors per organization, 15.2% connecting to more than 10) is roughly 30 times higher than what IT professionals self-report, and only 0.75% of generative AI requests were blocked. The report highlights a governance gap: those who approve AI-related budgets are the least concerned about untracked spending, while practitioners and IT managers report greater concern about visibility and control.
Technical Details
Data comes from a survey of security professionals combined with network-level telemetry: in August 2026, DNSFilter processed 3.4 billion requests to generative AI tools from more than 43,000 organizations across North America over a two-business-day measurement window. Key findings include that 61.5% of respondents cannot confirm every security tool is properly configured, 61.8% cannot confirm every tool is actively monitored, and 46.1% reported an employee connecting an unapproved AI tool to corporate SSO/cloud environments.
Remediation
DNSFilter's CEO Ken Carnesi recommends closing the gap between who decides to connect AI tools and who owns the associated risk as the focus of future security spending, implying a need for stronger AI governance controls, monitoring, and enforcement rather than relying on self-reported AI tool inventories.