Background
AI and low-code make it easy for non-technical staff to create apps the business now depends on.
Questions to ask yourself
- Are employees building tools without approval?
- Are those tools now business-critical?
- Do they access customer, financial, or production data?
- What happens if the employee who built them leaves?
- Are they using AI to write code they don't fully understand?
What you can do today
Find your shadow IT this week
Three places to look.
- 01Microsoft 365 admin centre → Reports → Power Platform Apps and SharePoint sites created in the last year.
- 02Ask three staff: “What tool have you built this year that you think the team now relies on?”
- 03Start a tools register. Name, owner, what it does, what data it touches, what happens if the owner leaves.