You can’t secure what you can’t see.
From unsanctioned GenAI tools to rogue LLM experiments, AI adoption is accelerating in every corner of the enterprise—often without oversight. Shadow AI is more than a buzzword—it’s a growing blind spot with real consequences: data leakage, IP exposure, and regulatory risk.
BigID’s new Shadow AI Discovery helps organizations uncover unauthorized AI models, surface sensitive data in use, and take action to reduce AI risk—before it becomes a breach or compliance incident. It’s the latest expansion of our AI governance capabilities, and a critical step in making AI safer across the enterprise.
What Is Shadow AI—and Why It’s Risky
Shadow AI refers to any AI model, tool, or system that’s deployed without official approval or oversight. It’s the GenAI chatbot built by a business unit on a public cloud instance. It’s the open-source LLM tested on sensitive customer data. It’s the AI tool that no one knew was running—until something went wrong.
The risks?
- Data exposure: Personal, regulated, or proprietary data used in training or inference
- IP leakage: Sensitive company assets unintentionally exposed to public models
- Compliance gaps: AI usage that violates internal policies or regulatory mandates
- No accountability: No logs, no approvals, no visibility—no one to answer for it
How BigID Helps
Shadow AI Discovery brings visibility and control to the invisible. It enables security, privacy, and governance teams to:
- Discover rogue and unmanaged AI models across cloud, SaaS, developer tools, and collaboration platforms
- Detect sensitive or regulated data used in training, prompts, and inference
- Correlate models to users, access, and datasets for full context
- Enforce policy and take action with built-in remediation tools like access restriction, labeling, and data quarantine
You don’t just see the problem—you solve it.

The BigID Advantage
Unlike tools that only surface model metadata or limit visibility to approved deployments, BigID delivers:
- Deep data awareness: Understand what data is in use—and whether it’s appropriate for AI
- Enterprise-wide coverage: Monitor AI activity across both structured and unstructured environments
- Built-in enforcement: Act immediately from the platform with policy triggers and remediation workflows
- Integrated governance: Combine Shadow AI insights with broader data security, privacy, and compliance controls
See What You’ve Been Missing
Shadow AI isn’t just a visibility problem—it’s a security problem. BigID gives you the tools to detect, investigate, and mitigate AI risk wherever it hides.
Start taking control of AI risk today. Set up a 1:1 with one of our Data Security experts today!