Shadow AI is not a “fringe problem” and has gone “mainstream” at health systems, Black Book Market Research reported.
Here are five things to know about shadow AI, or the unapproved or informal use of the technology, according to the survey of 92 healthcare enterprise and service line leaders and 136 front-line professionals published Dec. 17:
1. 58% of front-line health system staffers employed generic AI tools (i.e., ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini) for work at least once in the last month, while 39% used them AI weekly or more.
2. Common shadow AI tasks include developing patient letters and portal messages, drafting emails and internal correspondence, generating patient education content, and synthesizing clinical information or inbox messages.
3. 17% of shadow AI adopters acknowledge they sometimes or often include identifiable patient data. Another 27% say they do”rarely, but it might slip.”
4. 54% of leaders say they are “very” or “somewhat” confident that AI utilization at their organizations is mostly via official, approved channels.
5. At organizations with mature AI governance, front-line workers are 30% less likely to use shadow AI at least once a week.
