UK Workers Hide AI Use From Their Bosses, Deloitte Survey Finds

Almost one in ten UK workers have used an AI tool that their employer has banned or would disapprove of, according to a survey by Deloitte that highlights the growing tension between employees and their bosses over using the technology.

The survey found that 63% of workers have used AI tools at work, suggesting that many are keen to use AI to improve their work or speed up mundane tasks. The same proportion of the 25,000 respondents worried their manager may think AI can do their job.

The results suggest workers are eager to embrace AI, but feel their employers are constraining access or may use adoption as a pretext to cut jobs or suppress pay.

Workers are thinking “this could increase my profitability or this could diminish my worth” at the same time, said Paul Lee, who ran the survey. He says this contributes to a “stigma” around AI in the workplace.

The figures reinforce evidence that unauthorized AI use is widespread at work. Data security firm Cyberhaven, which tracks data movements across hundreds of companies, found that a third of employees accessed AI through personal accounts, and almost 40% of AI interactions involved sensitive data. A report from Microsoft in October put the unauthorized AI figure at 71%.

Last week the UK National Cyber Security Centre warned about the hidden risks of “shadow AI”, where employees use AI outside an organization’s approved systems, including the exposure of sensitive information, and losing track of decision-making. David Chismon of the NCSC said it’s “widespread,” adding: “IT security teams should not assume they are seeing the full picture.”

“Organizations can’t hope to block connections to all possible AI tools, so they need to develop a positive cyber security culture with open dialogue about the tools staff might wish to use and to set clear guardrails around what secure use of AI looks like,” Chismon said.

Using unauthorized IT tools pre-dates AI, according to James Longster, a partner specializing in technology at law firm Travers Smith, who likened the current trend to people with USB sticks and personal cloud storage.

“The problem for companies is that when you’re using an unauthorized AI system, that’s nearly always going to be the kind of commercially consumer version of that AI, which will ingest the data and use it for training,” Longster said. “An employee might be uploading the crown jewels into a commercially available AI.”

Ailie Murray, a partner specializing in employment at Travers Smith, said businesses are increasingly concerned about unauthorized AI use but it’s “early days.”

Gloucestershire Police has dismissed a member of staff for using AI against the force’s rules, and circumventing blocked sites by using personal accounts. Separately, the Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating an officer for alleged gross misconduct over their AI use. The cases were first reported by the Financial Times.

Another case is being heard in an employment tribunal where an employer said it dismissed an employee for his reliance on AI-generated writing, but they argue they were dismissed for raising concerns about the company’s handling of data.

“One of the issues is that employers don’t necessarily have the evidence if employees are using, for example, their own personal ChatGPT on their mobiles,” Murray said. She added there’s also a gray area over whether they’re using that to bolster their own general knowledge or to complete work tasks.

A more immediate concern is that employees are taking AI tools into their own hands because employers aren’t keeping pace. Most respondents in the Deloitte survey said their company leaders have a poor or non-existent understanding of AI, while half of AI users said they received no formal guidance or training.

That echoes an earlier report by Accenture, which found that while employees have adopted AI quickly for minor tasks, company-level change is moving more slowly, with businesses yet to change their systems and workflows around the tech.

There’s nascent evidence that AI is lifting Britain out of its economic slump, with the Office for National Statistics citing AI as a major driver of the country’s annualized growth rate tracking at 2.4%. But to unlock the full benefits of AI at work, companies may need to catch up with their employees.