As AI technology advances, employees in various roles are building and shipping their own AI-powered tools, often without the knowledge of their company’s security team. This trend has created a security gap that is not being addressed, according to a recent analysis by Vanta, an agentic trust management platform.

Builder Culture and Security Risks

The analysis found that the number of employees building and shipping their own tools has grown significantly over the past year, with a 311% increase in builder-type roles across Vanta’s customer base. This shift has led to a rise in AI adoption, with builder organizations adopting AI vendors at a 73% higher rate than non-builder organizations.

However, this increased adoption of AI has also created new security risks. Vanta’s data shows that the number of alerts related to AI security has grown from zero to hundreds per month over the past year. Furthermore, the use of AI-powered tools has led to the creation of ‘shadow AI,’ where employees use tools without formal approval, which can bypass traditional security review processes.

To address this security gap, companies need to redesign their processes to work with the trend of employees building and shipping their own AI-powered tools. This can be achieved by implementing tools that automate the scanning of new vendors and scoring their risk, as well as pairing automation with a policy that treats AI agents wired into company systems with the same scrutiny as traditional software purchases.

Original reporting: El Paso News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.