Ep.236-Shadow AI: The Invisible Agents Already Inside Your Customers' Business

AI agents are already operating inside your customers' businesses — accessing real data, making real decisions, and answering to no one. Two-thirds of office workers admit to using AI tools that weren't approved, and nearly half of all enterprise AI activity runs through personal accounts that completely bypass company controls. This year, shadow AI is showing up in 43% of data breaches — more than double the year before — at an average cost of $5 million each.

In this episode, Josh Lupresto, SVP of Sales Engineering at Telarus, breaks down the shadow AI problem and why it's a fundamentally different challenge than the shadow IT issues we've been managing for 20 years. Unlike passive chatbots, today's AI agents take action — logging into systems, reading email, pulling records, and running workflows with little to no human oversight. And when they're unsanctioned, no one is watching the blast radius.

But here's the opportunity: your customers can't see this problem, and that makes you indispensable. Josh walks through the exact discovery questions to ask, how visibility alone builds instant trust, and how the Telarus solution map — spanning governance, zero trust, identity, and monitoring — turns one invisible risk into a full security engagement.

If you want to be the advisor your customers call before they adopt anything new, this episode is your playbook.