GENAI RISK

Generative AI Is
Your Biggest Ungoverned Risk

Your workforce adopted generative AI faster than any technology in history. But most organizations have zero controls around it. No visibility. No data protection. No audit trail. Here's what you're up against — and how to fix it.

See Mitigation StrategiesUnderstand the Risks
75%

of employees use AI tools at work

60%

of organizations have no AI governance

€35M

maximum fine under the EU AI Act

The Six Risks of Generative AI in the Workplace

These risks exist whether you have an AI policy or not. The question is whether you have controls in place to manage them.

Data Leakage

Critical

Employees paste customer data, financial records, and proprietary code into AI tools. This data is sent to external servers operated by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others.

Business impact: Potential GDPR fines, loss of trade secrets, breach notification requirements.

Shadow AI

High

Employees adopt AI tools without IT approval. You don't know which tools are in use, who's using them, or what data is being shared.

Business impact: Ungoverned data flows, compliance gaps, no incident response capability.

Regulatory Non-Compliance

High

The EU AI Act, GDPR, HIPAA, and industry regulations require transparency and data protection for AI usage. Most organizations have no controls in place.

Business impact: Fines up to €35M (EU AI Act), $1.5M per violation (HIPAA), reputational damage.

No Audit Trail

High

AI interactions aren't captured by existing security tools. When a regulator or auditor asks what data was sent to AI, you have no answer.

Business impact: Failed audits, inability to investigate incidents, regulatory penalties.

Intellectual Property Exposure

Critical

Source code, product designs, business strategies, and competitive intelligence are shared with AI for analysis and improvement.

Business impact: Loss of competitive advantage, potential IP disputes, trade secret exposure.

Workforce Governance

Medium

Without clear policies and enforcement, AI usage varies wildly across teams. Some departments handle it well, others are a liability.

Business impact: Inconsistent risk posture, difficulty scaling AI adoption safely.

Mitigation Strategies Compared

There are several approaches to managing GenAI risk. Here's an honest comparison.

Ban AI tools entirely

Not practical

Pros

  • Eliminates data risk

Cons

  • Employees use them anyway (shadow AI)
  • Competitive disadvantage
  • Talent retention issues

Write an acceptable use policy

Necessary but insufficient

Pros

  • Sets expectations
  • Low cost to implement

Cons

  • No enforcement mechanism
  • Relies on employee compliance
  • No audit trail

Use enterprise AI plans only

Helpful but incomplete

Pros

  • Better data handling terms
  • Admin controls

Cons

  • Doesn't prevent data in prompts
  • No PII scrubbing
  • Doesn't cover all tools employees use

Deploy an AI security gateway

Comprehensive

Pros

  • Automatic data protection
  • Works across all AI tools
  • Complete audit trail
  • Policy enforcement

Cons

  • Requires deployment

How Tenlines Manages GenAI Risk

Tenlines is an AI security gateway that sits between your workforce and every AI provider. It addresses all six risk categories automatically.

Data Leakage: PII and credentials are scrubbed before reaching AI
Shadow AI: All AI traffic is routed through the gateway and logged
Regulatory Non-Compliance: Complete audit trail satisfies EU AI Act, GDPR, HIPAA
No Audit Trail: JSONL logs of every interaction, export-ready
IP Exposure: Semantic code matching blocks proprietary code from leaving
Workforce Governance: Role-based policies enforced automatically across all teams

Don't Let GenAI Be Your Next Incident

Get ahead of generative AI risk before it becomes a breach, a fine, or a headline.