Nairobi, Aug. 31 -- A manager asks her junior to prepare an analysis of a new market. The employee turns to an AI chatbot, queries it, formats the responses into a presentation and sends it to the manager.

The manager may not know the analysis - complete with figures, trends and recommendations - was produced by an AI tool. She cannot know which sources the system relied on, the timeliness of the data or whether some conclusions are wrong.

At the same time, the company does not use AI for tasks and there may be no policy governing its use.

This is the emerging problem of "shadow AI", a term coined to refer to AI tools being used by staff without the knowledge or oversight of their employers. Shadow AI is the use of software, hardware o...