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VentureBeat’s unique interview with Sam Evans, CISO of Clearwater Analytics, reveals why enterprise browsers are rapidly changing into the frontline protection in opposition to shadow AI in its many varieties.
Evans confronted a essential problem in October 2023. Standing earlier than Clearwater Analytics’ board, he needed to confront considerations that staff may inadvertently expose knowledge that would probably compromise the agency’s $8.8 trillion belongings below administration.
“The worst potential factor could be one in every of our staff taking buyer knowledge and placing it into an AI engine that we don’t handle,” Evans instructed VentureBeat. “The worker not figuring out any completely different or attempting to resolve an issue for a buyer…that knowledge helps prepare the mannequin.”
Right here is our dialog with Evans, edited for size and readability
VentureBeat: How do you see AI shaping cybersecurity as we speak?
Evans: The assaults have change into considerably extra refined. For those who think about it from the angle of a foul actor, the phishing emails and makes an attempt we obtain have change into way more advanced. Nonetheless, AI additionally possesses response capabilities.
I like to clarify it to our board, as the final word cat-and-mouse sport. As dangerous actors begin to use AI to advance phishing, or maybe expedite the time it takes for exploits to emerge after vulnerabilities are introduced, there’s the other facet of safety practitioners utilizing AI to assist advance how we reply.
VentureBeat: How is AI serving to your defensive capabilities?
Evans: We’ve begun integrating AI into our safety playbooks. By doing so, our safety analysts now spend much less time looking out and looking. The AI is concerned within the safety operations heart (SOC) product, conducting its preliminary triage evaluation and saying, “Based mostly on earlier issues that we’ve seen and issues in my mannequin, that is the place I’d prefer to information you.”
On the defensive facet, we’re actually beginning to see AI come into play. CrowdStrike, Sentinel One, Microsoft Defender, the normal prolonged detection and response (EDR) merchandise have been utilizing some machine studying, and they’d get to a chance of possibly 85% that this might be a menace, however we’re not likely positive. Nonetheless, AI enriches the EDR engine’s skill to achieve the next chance fee of figuring out a menace.
VentureBeat: What retains you up at evening in relation to AI and cybersecurity?
Evans: The factor that does fear me fairly a bit is the deepfakes. You learn a number of tales about folks utilizing deepfakes to impersonate a CEO to provoke wire transfers. These are regarding as a result of they do look very, very actual.
However the largest concern? The worst potential factor could be one in every of our staff taking buyer knowledge and placing it into an AI engine that we don’t handle, after which it turns into knowledge that helps prepare the mannequin.
VentureBeat: How did you clarify this shadow AI threat to your board?
Evans: I bear in mind when one of many first board conferences I used to be in, they requested me, “So what are your ideas on ChatGPT?” I stated, “Properly, it’s an unimaginable productiveness device. Nonetheless, I don’t understand how we may let our staff use it, as a result of my largest worry is someone copies and pastes buyer knowledge into it, or our supply code, which is our mental property.”
However I didn’t simply come to the board with my considerations and issues. I stated, “Properly, right here’s my answer. I don’t need to cease folks from being productive, however I additionally need to defend it.” Once I got here to the board and defined how these enterprise browsers work, they’re like, “Okay, that makes a lot sense, however can you actually do it?”
VentureBeat: Stroll me by your analysis and deployment course of for Island.
Evans: After that October 2023 board assembly, we began a fairly lengthy due diligence course of. We took a take a look at a number of the main distributors within the enterprise browser house.
I’ll share with you finally why we went with an Island. We wanted to have the ability to management what browsers individuals are utilizing on their endpoints. It doesn’t do any good to deploy an enterprise browser when someone can go and obtain Opera or “Frank’s browser of the month” and use it, and it simply bypasses all the Island controls.
The opposite cause we went with Island was actually due to the pace of the deployment. I bear in mind being on a name with Island salespeople, they usually’re saying, “We imagine we will get this deployed in your organization in a matter of weeks.” I’m like, “Oh, that’s BS.”
VentureBeat: However they delivered?
Evans: They took it as a private problem! We began our Island deployment in April 2024 with about 200 folks. We went the extension route first; the Island extension in Chrome and Edge.
It wasn’t till July when the board requested, “How is it going?” And I stated, “How about I simply present you?” I pulled up a screenshot as a result of, you recognize, Murphy’s Regulation demos all the time fail. So I confirmed them screenshots, “Right here I’m on ChatGPT. I attempted to stick one thing in. I received the immediate: ‘Island coverage prevents you from doing this.’”
They’re like, “Wow, that is unbelievable! However folks can nonetheless make the most of the device to ask good questions?” I stated, “Yeah, completely. They simply can’t put knowledge into it.”
VentureBeat: Do you are feeling that Island assures you and reduces the chance of Shadow AI?
Evans: It positively has helped us get a deal with on shadow AI. No safety device is 100% good. Having deployed Island, we positively sleep so much simpler. We will really feel fairly snug that if an worker goes to an AI occasion that we don’t have licensed, they will use it, however can’t paste knowledge or add recordsdata.
It’s additionally helped us establish the place now we have gaps. Staff discovered this actually nice AI widget factor, they arrive to the safety crew, “Hey, look, examine this out.” After which we will come again to our product growth groups and work out how we assist allow this, not only for our staff, however for our clients.
VentureBeat: How do you defend in opposition to deepfakes?
Evans: That’s a tricky one to wrap your arms round. We have now a wonderful safety consciousness program. We ask staff to make use of widespread sense. Do you actually suppose Sandeep Sahai, our CEO, goes to name you up and ask you to purchase him Apple reward playing cards?
We’ve arrange a number of checks and balances, form of just like the two-person buddy examine system. There’s no expertise answer for one thing like that. It’s a human downside that we’ve needed to implement a human answer.
VentureBeat: What recommendation would you give different CISOs dealing with shadow AI?
Evans: This isn’t nearly blocking, it’s about enablement. Convey options, not simply issues. Once I got here to the board, I didn’t simply spotlight the dangers; I proposed an answer that balanced safety with productiveness.
Welcome to the shadow AI arms race
Evans’ insights reveal how rapidly shadow AI has change into an existential menace to each data-intensive enterprise.
“We see 50 new AI apps a day, and we’ve already cataloged over 12,000,” Itamar Golan, CEO of Immediate Safety, instructed VentureBeat, quantifying what safety groups are calling their worst nightmare since ransomware.
The onslaught of unauthorized AI use and apps has triggered intense competitors amongst safety distributors. “Most conventional administration instruments lack complete visibility into AI apps,” Vineet Arora, CTO of WinWire, defined to VentureBeat, pinpointing precisely why shadow AI thrives as legacy safety architectures are blind to it.
The seller ecosystem has crystallized into 4 distinct battlegrounds, every with its weapons and weaknesses.
Enterprise browsers lead the cost. Foremost amongst them is Island, which not too long ago raised a $250 million funding spherical, a vote of confidence from the investor group. Whereas Island bets on pre-encryption visibility, Google Chrome Enterprise assaults shadow AI in another way, weaponizing its market dominance and Google’s safety stack. Chrome Enterprise Premium delivers knowledge loss prevention (DLP) controls that block knowledge flows to ChatGPT and different AI instruments, forestall cross-profile contamination and implement real-time content material scanning. The platform exposes shadow AI utilization patterns whereas blocking each unintended pastes and deliberate exfiltration. Strategic partnerships with Zscaler and Cisco Safe Entry amplify Chrome’s attain to create an ecosystem the place zero-trust rules lengthen on to AI interactions.
SASE/SSE platforms ship enterprise-scale protection. Netskope and Zscaler convey scale to shadow AI protection by their cloud-native safety entry service edge (SASE) architectures. Each platforms course of billions of transactions every day throughout international infrastructures, with Netskope particularly promoting its skill to watch AI software utilization throughout enterprises. Their key limitation: When 73.8% of office ChatGPT utilization happens by private accounts, SSL/TLS encryption prevents platforms from inspecting content material, forcing them to depend on visitors patterns and metadata, resulting in visibility gaps the place shadow AI operates undetected.
Conventional DLP distributors wrestle to adapt. Legacy distributors Forcepoint and Microsoft Purview have a powerful legacy to commerce on in relation to battling shadow AI. Forcepoint claims 1,700-plus classifiers whereas Purview leverages AI to triage duties. However right here’s the issue: They’re retrofitting Twentieth-century architectures for Twenty first-century threats. These platforms excel at compliance checkboxes and coverage templates however fail to maintain up with AI’s faster tempo.
As Daren Goeson, Ivanti’s SVP of product administration for UEM instructed VentureBeat: “AI-powered endpoint safety instruments can analyze huge quantities of information to detect anomalies and predict potential threats sooner and extra precisely than any human analyst.” Conventional DLP operates at audit pace. Shadow AI strikes at machine pace.
Specialised options fill essential gaps. Innovation thrives within the niches that legacy distributors ignore. One instance is Ivanti Neurons, which delivers complete gadget discovery by its UEM platform, exposing shadow AI hiding in endpoints that conventional instruments miss. Mike Riemer, Ivanti’s Area CISO, sees the larger image: “Safety professionals will successfully leverage the capabilities of gen AI to investigate huge quantities of information collected from various methods.” Dusk, for its half, targets developer groups with transformer fashions, claiming 2x detection accuracy for API based mostly AI instruments.
Evaluating Shadow AI Protection Options
| Vendor | Sort | Key Strengths | Limitations | Finest For |
| Test Level Concord | Browser extension | Leverages current infrastructure | Restricted to extension | Test Level clients |
| Forcepoint | Conventional DLP | 1,700+ classifiers, regulatory compliance | Legacy structure | Extremely regulated industries |
| Google Chrome Enterprise | Enterprise browser | Market dominance, native integration | Much less specialised controls | Google Workspace organizations |
| Island | Enterprise browser | Pre-encryption visibility, zero latency, Fast deployment | Greater value per consumer | Enterprises with delicate knowledge |
| Ivanti Neurons | UEM Platform | Complete gadget discovery | Not browser-specific | Asset administration focus |
| Microsoft Purview | DLP Platform | Native Microsoft integration, AI-powered triage | Microsoft-centric | Microsoft 365 enterprises |
| Netskope | SASE/SSE Platform | Complete protection, 370+ AI app monitoring | Submit-encryption complexity | Giant distributed enterprises |
| Dusk | AI-Native DLP | 2x detection accuracy, Transformer fashions | API-only method | Developer-centric groups |
| Talon Cyber Safety | Enterprise Browser | Browser + extension choices | Newer to market | Safety-conscious SMBs |
| Zscaler | SASE/SSE Platform | 536B every day transactions, true zero-trust | Cloud-only method | Cloud-first organizations |
VentureBeat evaluation
What’s driving the market to maneuver so quick? VentureBeat’s evaluation discovered 74,500-plus shadow AI apps actively deployed throughout main consulting corporations alone, and that’s rising 5% month-to-month. By mid-2026, that quantity may hit 160,000. Every represents a possible knowledge breach, compliance violation, or aggressive intelligence leak.
Arora’s prescription cuts by vendor hype: “Organizations should outline methods with strong safety whereas enabling staff to make use of AI applied sciences successfully. Complete bans typically drive AI use underground, which solely magnifies the dangers.”
