Secret chatbot use causes workplace rifts

Axios

29-05-2025

More employees are using generative AI at work and many are keeping it a secret.
Why it matters: Absent clear policies, workers are taking an "ask forgiveness, not permission" approach to chatbots, risking workplace friction and costly mistakes.
The big picture: Secret genAI use proliferates when companies lack clear guidelines, because favorite tools are banned or because employees want a competitive edge over coworkers.
Fear plays a big part too — fear of being judged and fear that using the tool will make it look like they can be replaced by it.
By the numbers: 42% of office workers use genAI tools like ChatGPT at work and one in three of those workers say they keep the use secret, according to research out this month from security software company Ivanti.
A McKinsey report from January showed that employees are using genAI for significantly more of their work than their leaders think they are.
20% of employees report secretly using AI during job interviews, according to a Blind survey of 3,617 U.S. professionals.
Catch up quick: When ChatGPT first wowed workers over two years ago, companies were unprepared and worried about confidential business information leaking into the tool, so they preached genAI abstinence.
Now the big AI firms offer enterprise products that can protect IP and leaders are paying for those bespoke tools and pushing hard for their employees to use them.
The blanket bans are gone, but the stigma remains.
Zoom in: New research backs up workers' fear of the optics around using AI for work.
A recent study from Duke University found that those who use genAI "face negative judgments about their competence and motivation from others."
Yes, but: The Duke study also found that workers who use AI more frequently are less likely to perceive potential job candidates as lazy if they use AI.
Zoom out: The stigma around genAI can lead to a raft of problems, including the use of unauthorized tools, known as "shadow AI" or BYOAI (bring your own AI).
Research from cyber firm Prompt Security found that 65% of employees using ChatGPT rely on its free tier, where data can be used to train models.
Shadow AI can also hinder collaboration. Wharton professor and AI expert Ethan Mollick calls workers using genAI for individual productivity " secret cyborgs" who keep all their tricks to themselves.
"The real risk isn't that people are using AI — it's pretending they're not," Amit Bendov, co-founder and CEO of Gong, an AI platform that analyzes customer interactions, told Axios in an email.
Between the lines: Employees will use AI regardless of whether there's a policy, says Coursera's chief learning officer, Trena Minudri.
Leaders should focus on training, she argues. (Coursera sells training courses to businesses.)
Workers also need a "space to experiment safely," Minudri told Axios in an email.
The tech is changing so fast that leaders need to acknowledge that workplace guidelines are fluid.
Vague platitudes like "always keep a human in the loop" aren't useful if workers don't understand what the loop is or where they fit into it.
GenAI continues to struggle with accuracy and companies risk embarrassing gaffes, or worse, when unchecked AI-generated content goes public.
Clearly communicating these issues can go a long way in helping employees feel more comfortable opening up about their AI use, Atlassian CTO Rajeev Rajan told Axios.
"Our research tells us that leadership plays a big role in setting the tone for creating a culture that fosters AI experimentation," Rajan said in an email. "Be honest about the gaps that still exist."
The bottom line: Encouraging workers to use AI collaboratively could go a long way to ending the secrecy.