GoKawiilEvery year, the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report serves as a ground-truth benchmark for the industry. Its value comes not just from the headline numbers but from the convergence signals: when multiple independent data sources point to the same structural shift in how attackers operate, that convergence is worth paying attention to.
This year, as a contributor to the Verizon 2026 DBIR, the Keep Aware team had early visibility into that convergence.
This post breaks down the specific areas where the 2026 DBIR data and Keep Aware's own browser telemetry align — and where browser-layer data reveals what network and endpoint tools miss entirely.
Shadow AI Has Become a Mainstream Enterprise Risk
Shadow AI was identified in the Verizon DBIR as the third most common non-malicious insider action observed in Data Loss Prevention (DLP) datasets, representing a fourfold increase from the previous year.
Employees are not typically trying to exfiltrate data; rather, they are using the fastest available tool for a task, which increasingly means pasting internal documents or source code into a personal ChatGPT session before their organization has had time to approve and provision a governed alternative.
The scale of unauthorized AI usage in enterprise environments is one of the report’s most significant findings: 67% of users are accessing AI services on corporate devices through personal, non-corporate accounts, and 45% of employees are now considered regular AI users.
Keep Aware’s browser telemetry further provides insight into how these AI services are being used. Over half of AI prompt inputs are sent to personal accounts, and 23% of sensitive prompt uploads involve data transiting through personal or unverified accounts (i.e., outside the reach of any corporate DLP policy or logging infrastructure), conveying the real risks of AI usage.
Figure 9 from the Verizon 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report
Sensitive data is leaving your organization through AI tools Employees are pasting and uploading confidential data into ChatGPT, Gemini, and dozens of other AI tools every day. Keep Aware’s free AI audit shows you exactly what's leaving, and from which apps, before it becomes a breach. Get your free AI audit
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