"Shadow AI"—the use of AI tools by employees without the company's knowledge or approval

"Shadow AI"—the use of AI tools by employees without the company's knowledge or approval—is already a reality, bringing security and compliance risks. Faced with this, our goal was clear: to act quickly to turn this risk into an opportunity by establishing measurable AI governance.
How it worked:

We ran an agile loop grounded in AI TRiSM principles, with a clear RACI across CISO, CIO, and cross-functional areas, as detailed in the attached diagrams.

- Our flow: Risk → Policy → Control → Incident → Metric

What we delivered:

- SHADOW-AI-001 risk registered and prioritized.
- Acceptable Use of GenAI Policy published.
- DLP/Proxy/Monitoring controls implemented.
- Incident simulation for Shadow AI completed.
- Executive dashboard tracking response times and control effectiveness.

Why it matters:

It dramatically reduces data-leak and compliance exposure, accelerates decision-making, and builds a repeatable foundation for further AI use cases—without stifling innovation.

Highlight: We used Eracent CSMS to centrally orchestrate frameworks, risks, policies, and approvals end-to-end, turning policy into measurable outcomes with true stakeholder engagement.
Want to replicate this model?

Dive deeper into the model:

For those interested, the visual blueprint (with RACI matrix and process flows) is detailed in the attached cards. The intention is to share an open model with the community. Save this post for reference and feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss adapting the framework.