Discover every AI tool your employees use, enforce acceptable use policies in real time, and stop sensitive data from leaving your organization, without blocking the AI productivity your teams need.
An enterprise Workforce AI Security platform is a purpose-built security and compliance solution that gives organizations visibility and control over how employees interact with AI tools. It addresses three interconnected problems that have emerged as AI adoption has accelerated faster than policy, procurement, and security processes can keep up: shadow AI usage (employees using AI tools that were never approved or reviewed), data leakage (sensitive information being shared with AI models without oversight), and compliance exposure (the inability to demonstrate to auditors that AI usage is governed and documented).
Aona is an enterprise Workforce AI Security platform built for the browser layer, the only place where all employee AI activity is visible, regardless of which device, network, or AI tool is in use. It combines four core capabilities: shadow AI discovery to map every AI tool in use across the organization; policy enforcement to set acceptable use rules and enforce them in real time; a file scanner to prevent sensitive data from being uploaded to AI models; and real-time employee coaching to educate employees at the moment of risk, not after an incident has already occurred.
The scale of the problem makes a purpose-built solution essential. Salesforce research in 2024 found that 55% of employees are using AI tools that were never approved by IT or security. Cisco's 2024 Privacy Benchmark Study found that 48% of employees have entered confidential, non-public information into generative AI tools. These are not edge cases or rogue actors, they are the mainstream of enterprise AI behavior, and they represent risks that general-purpose DLP, CASB, and endpoint tools were not designed to address.
A well-implemented Workforce AI Security platform does not restrict AI usage, it enables safe AI adoption at scale. By giving employees clear guardrails, real-time guidance, and access to approved tools, organizations can accelerate AI productivity while maintaining the compliance posture and data protection standards that regulators, customers, and boards require.
of employees use unapproved AI tools without IT knowledge
Source: Salesforce, 2024
have entered non-public or confidential data into generative AI tools
Source: Cisco Privacy Benchmark Study, 2024
Shadow AI is the fastest-growing blind spot in enterprise security. According to Salesforce, 55% of employees are using AI tools that were never reviewed, approved, or procured by IT or security. That number is accelerating every quarter as new AI tools launch and employees adopt them before policy catches up.
Aona's Shadow AI Discovery operates at the browser layer, the only place where employee AI usage is fully visible, regardless of device, network, or VPN status. As employees use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Midjourney, or any of thousands of other AI tools, Aona captures the activity in real time: which tool, which employee, what category of data was shared, and whether a policy was triggered.
Unlike network-layer solutions that require traffic inspection infrastructure and struggle with encrypted connections, Aona requires no changes to your network architecture. A lightweight browser extension deploys in minutes via your existing MDM or endpoint management tool. Within 24 hours, you have a complete map of AI usage across your organization, the approved tools, the unapproved tools, and the gaps between your AI policy and reality.
An AI acceptable use policy is only as good as your ability to enforce it. Most organizations publish a policy document, send an all-hands email, and hope for the best. Aona makes policy enforcement automatic, real-time, and auditable, without relying on employees to remember what they read in a training module six months ago.
Aona's policy engine lets security and compliance teams define exactly which AI tools are approved, which are blocked, and which are permitted with conditions. High-risk prompt patterns, questions that could exfiltrate customer data, trade secrets, or regulated information, can be intercepted at the point of entry before they reach the AI model. Policies are enforced at the browser layer, which means they apply regardless of whether an employee is on a corporate device, a home network, or a personal machine managed by your MDM.
Policy enforcement in Aona is not binary. Rather than simply blocking access to unapproved tools and creating friction that drives shadow IT deeper underground, Aona supports graduated responses: warn the employee with context about why a tool or prompt is risky, require acknowledgement before proceeding for medium-risk scenarios, and hard-block only the highest-risk actions. This nuanced approach reduces policy violations without reducing productivity.
File upload is the highest-risk AI interaction pattern in the enterprise. When an employee uploads a contract, a spreadsheet, a presentation, or a source code file to an AI tool, they may be inadvertently sharing customer PII, proprietary intellectual property, financial data, or regulated health information with a third-party model provider whose data handling practices they have not reviewed.
Aona's File Scanner intercepts file uploads to AI tools and classifies the content in real time before the upload completes. Using a combination of pattern matching and semantic classification, the scanner identifies PII (names, emails, phone numbers, national IDs), financial data (account numbers, trading data, revenue figures), intellectual property (source code, product roadmaps, M&A documents), and regulated data categories including HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and GDPR-relevant content.
When a sensitive file is detected, Aona can warn the employee with a specific explanation of what was found and why it matters, require manager approval before the upload proceeds, or block the upload entirely based on your policy configuration. Every scan result is logged with the file hash, data categories detected, the AI tool it was destined for, and the policy outcome, creating a comprehensive audit trail for compliance reviews.
Security awareness training has a well-documented retention problem. Employees complete annual training, pass the quiz, and then make the exact same mistakes in the real world because generic training doesn't translate to specific situations. The most effective moment to teach someone about AI risk is the moment they are about to make a risky AI decision, not six months later in a classroom.
Aona's real-time coaching system intercepts risky AI interactions and delivers contextual, specific education at the point of action. When an employee is about to upload a file containing customer PII to an unapproved AI tool, Aona doesn't just block the action, it explains what PII was detected, why uploading it to this specific tool is a compliance risk, what the approved alternative is, and what the policy says about this scenario. The employee learns something true and actionable, right now, when it matters.
Coaching messages are designed to reduce policy violations over time, not just prevent individual incidents. Aona tracks which employees trigger repeated coaching events, enabling security teams to identify individuals who need additional support and demonstrating to compliance auditors that your organization has a proactive, not just reactive, AI risk management program.
AI governance is not just a compliance checkbox, it is a risk management investment with measurable returns.
The average cost of a data breach involving employee-driven data sharing is $4.88M (IBM, 2024). Aona prevents the highest-risk AI interactions, sensitive file uploads, high-risk prompt patterns, and data sharing with unapproved tools, before they become incidents. By intercepting risk at the source rather than responding after exfiltration, organizations dramatically reduce their AI-related breach surface.
Compliance teams spend significant time reconstructing evidence of AI policy adherence for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and regulatory audits. Aona generates audit-ready reports automatically: complete logs of AI tool usage, policy enforcement actions, coaching events, and data classification outcomes. What previously required weeks of manual evidence collection is reduced to a report export.
The real cost of poor AI governance is not just breach risk, it is the productivity value lost when organizations respond to AI risk by restricting access rather than governing it. Aona enables organizations to confidently expand approved AI tool access, knowing that guardrails are in place. Employees get more access to the AI tools that make them productive; the organization gets the oversight it needs to do so safely.
Deploy Aona via your existing MDM. See your first shadow AI inventory within hours. Start enforcing AI policies the same day.