PagerDuty

PagerDuty survey: 66% of office workers have used unauthorized AI tools at work

Two-thirds of office professionals have used AI tools at work while believing company policy did not allow it, according to a survey PagerDuty released June 11, 2026. Wakefield Research surveyed 1,250 non-IT office workers at organizations with at least $500 million in annual revenue in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Japan. Among respondents, 88% said they had shared work information with public AI tools, including emails (43%), meeting notes (40%), customer data (34%), and financial information or confidential documents (31%). Although the survey covered large companies, the pattern applies to businesses of any size. Most employees first used these tools in their personal lives, and 86% said their organization has an AI policy. But 81% said leadership plays by different AI rules, and 77% said AI restrictions limit their career growth. PagerDuty's findings point to restrictive or inconsistent policies as a reason AI use moves out of view of the company. Banning AI outright tends to push it underground. A more practical approach is to provide an approved business-grade AI tool, write a short policy that names which tools are allowed and which data types must never go into public AI, and apply it to executives as well as staff. Ask your IT provider whether your security tools can see or block uploads to unapproved AI services, and whether your data loss prevention settings cover AI. PagerDuty CTO Tim Armandpour said the goal should be to redirect AI use into governed platforms, not to slow adoption.