Lanai announced its breakthrough edge-based AI Observability Agent, the first platform to run AI detection models directly on enterprise devices rather than routing sensitive conversations through centralized infrastructure. This launch introduces AI Interaction Discovery, which solves what traditional network monitoring and static “approved AI lists” cannot, while providing prompt-level visibility into employee GenAI interactions across any application, embedded, native, or newly released, without sending data outside company boundaries.
While companies invest $500–$2,000 per employee on AI tools in the biggest tech spending spree since cloud adoption, new research from Lanai’s early deployments reveals 89% of actual AI usage is completely invisible to IT teams.
Across industries and professions, employees are using a range of AI tools, including Claude, ChatGPT, or coding tools like Cursor and Codeium, and also unknowingly feeding sensitive data into AI features embedded within approved applications like Salesforce Einstein, Microsoft Copilot, Adobe Firefly, Slack AI, HubSpot AI, Notion AI, and Figma AI. This creates a fundamental challenge between risk and productivity that traditional security tools can’t untangle.
In one striking example, an information security team confident they had “locked everything down” discovered 27 unauthorized AI tools in use within the first four days of Lanai deployment. This discovery gap aligns with broader industry findings showing 50% of office workers use shadow AI and up to 40% of enterprise IT spending goes untracked.
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Lanai’s unique approach reveals not just what AI tools employees use, but the specific context that determines whether those interactions drive business value or create compliance violations.
“CEOs want companies to be AI-first. But leadership teams, especially CISOs and CIOs are being asked to manage and secure something they can’t see,” said Lexi Reese, CEO of Lanai. “And the truth is, Shadow AI isn’t a threat; it’s your productivity pipeline that needs governance, not shutdown. Traditional tools might catch someone visiting ChatGPT.com, but they can’t tell you whether that employee had a casual conversation or shared company trade secrets.”
Reese added, “The question isn’t ‘How do we control AI?’ It is ‘How do we secure and scale what’s working while cutting off what’s dangerous?’ Lanai turns AI governance from a brake into an accelerator.”
