CheatGPT: the hidden wave of employees using AI on the sly

The hidden wave of employees using AI on the sly

For the most part, Blake doesn't mind his job as a customer-benefits advisor at an insurance company. But there's one task he's always found tedious: scrambling to find the right medical codes when customers call to file a claim. Blake is evaluated in part on the amount of time he spends on intake calls — the less, the better — and the code-searching typically takes him two or three minutes out of a 12-minute call.

Then he discovered that Bing Chat, Microsoft's AI bot, could find the codes in mere seconds. At a call center, a productivity gain of 25% or more is huge — the kind that, if you told your boss about it, would win you major accolades, or maybe even a raise. Yet Blake has kept his discovery a secret. He hasn't told a soul about it, not even his coworkers. And he's kept right on using Bing to do his job even after his company issued a policy barring the staff from using AI. Bing is his secret weapon in a competitive environment — and he isn't about to give it up.

"My average handle time is one of the lowest in the company because I'm leveraging AI to accelerate my work behind their back," says Blake, who asked me not to use his real name. "I'm totally going to take advantage of it. This is part of a larger way of making my life more efficient." 

Since ChatGPT came out last November, employees in corporate America have responded in a variety of ways. Some have fought back against the use of AI, worried about their job security. Others are waiting for their companies to train them in how to use the new technology. And then there are employees like Blake — early adopters who are quietly using AI to do their jobs faster and better, even if it means violating company policy. Call it CheatGPT — a move that gives employees who are willing to bend or even break the rules a hidden advantage over their tech-averse coworkers.

Those secretly using AI on the job — experts call it "shadow IT" — appear to be legion. Back in January, even before rival tools like Bing Chat and Google's Bard were released, two-thirds of ChatGPT users surveyed by the social network Fishbowl said they were deploying the technology on the sly. That shouldn't come as a surprise, given the power of AI to boost productivity. In one study, AI made computer programmers 56% faster at coding. In another, employees completing writing tasks were 37% faster when they were assisted by AI. In many cases, those who use the new tool get an immediate leg up at work.

"From decades of research in innovation studying everyone from plumbers to librarians to surgeons, we know that, when given access to general purpose tools, people figure out ways to use them to make their jobs easier and better," Ethan Mollick, a professor of management at the Wharton School who studies AI, recently observed. But with technology like ChatGPT, he noted, employees aren't telling their companies about their discoveries. Instead, they've become "secret cyborgs, machine-augmented humans who keep themselves hidden." 

The race by employees to use AI — even if it means doing so in secret — is the opposite of what usually happens when a new technology arrives in the workplace. When a company implements new software, HR and IT typically spend months nagging everyone to use it, and employees comply only begrudgingly. This time, employees are rushing to use AI before their employers are ready. Why the flip?

It's very much in an employer's interest to have more productive workers. But given the risks that accompany AI, most companies have been unwilling to give workers a green light. Some, like Blake's insurance company, fear AI platforms might gain access to sensitive customer information, which businesses are legally obliged to protect. Others worry that employees will inadvertently divulge trade secrets in their prompts, or rely on error-prone responses from a chatbot without checking the machine's work. A recent survey conducted by the research firm Gartner found 14% of companies had issued a blanket ban on the use of chatbots.

"A lot of organizations are trying to figure out what to do," says Eser Rizaoglu, a senior director analyst at Gartner. "I liken it a little bit to COVID, when no one had a playbook and everyone was just trying to figure it out as they go." In Gartner's survey, 35% of companies said they hadn't finalized their AI guidance yet, and another 18% said they didn't plan on issuing any guidance at all.

Confusion about AI is rampant. "Employers are calling us," says Alex Alonso, the chief knowledge officer at SHRM, a trade association for HR professionals. "We're probably getting somewhere between 30 to 50 calls a week about that. 'What do I do with AI in the workplace?' And specifically, 'How do I deal with people who want to use it even though we haven't built a policy around it?'"

Employees, for their part, aren't waiting for employers to catch up. Many are happily deploying AI to get ahead on the job — and to knock off early. A software engineer I'll call Roberto, who works at one of the largest retailers in the US, discovered that ChatGPT could save him as many as 15 hours a week on certain coding tasks. But instead of using that extra time to do more work, he's been studying for a class he's taking on the side.

"I'm remote," he says. "They can't tell when I'm working and when I'm not. I can ChatGPT my way through solving something in a couple hours, and then just take the rest of the day off and they won't know."

Roberto hasn't told his coworkers or his boss about his use of AI. And even if his company decides to ban ChatGPT, he intends to keep right on using it. "If you use it in secret, you have an advantage over the people who aren't using it," he says. "So why talk about it? Why bring it up? I don't want to rock the boat."

Others have stumbled onto AI as a sort of secret mentor. Luke, a software engineer who's new to the career, has a coworker he often turns to when he has questions. Then, a few months ago, he got stuck on a problem at a moment when the coworker was unavailable. In a panic, he asked ChatGPT for help — et voilà. "It gave me this beautiful skeleton code," he says. "I was like: Wow, this makes so much sense. Now I just have to fill in the gaps." 

Luke doesn't know whether his employer is OK with him using ChatGPT, since it hasn't issued an official policy, and he's not about to ask. He's kept on consulting the bot on the side, sometimes saving himself an entire day of work. And because he's getting more done, he feels less anxious in his weekly status meetings with his boss, who doesn't know what's behind his newfound productivity.

A few weeks ago, Luke decided to come clean with his coworker. He was nervous about it. "I wasn't sure what she'd say," he recalls. "But when I told her, she was like, 'Oh, that's funny,' and admitted that she uses it too. I think the unspoken thing is that everyone is using it."  

All this secret AI use is made much easier by remote work. "I have zero fear of getting caught," says Blake, who uses his personal computer to access Bing Chat. "There's no way they'll find out. I get so much privacy working from home." Even in an office, all employees need to do is pull up ChatGPT or Bing on their phones — the same way they check Facebook or Twitter when their companies block access to social-media sites. Employers can ban AI all they like, but there's no way they can stop it.

If you're someone who's not using AI on the job, all this might strike you as unfair. But that's the reality at many workplaces right now: The failure of companies to adapt to the sudden emergence of tools like ChatGPT is creating a kind of AI inequality. Those who use it gain a quantifiable advantage over those who shy away from it. They're able to do more and better work, setting themselves up for the raises and promotions that might have gone to others. Or they're getting away with working less while everyone else is forced to toil away. By failing to create clear guidance on AI, companies are effectively empowering the covert users at the expense of everyone else.

"Let's say GPT was good enough to replace you as a writer," Mollick, the Wharton professor, told me a few months back. "It's going to be a long time before Insider and its parent companies are able to figure out how to take advantage of that in a useful way. So now is the time for you as a programmer, you as a writer, to do 10 times the work secretly as everybody else — because your company hasn't caught up."

It doesn't have to be this way. By embracing AI, companies can create a level playing field for all employees. They can also take the productivity benefits being discovered by the stealth GPT users and scale them across entire teams and departments. But to do that, bosses need their secret AI users to stop being so secretive. That means coming up with creative ways to incentivize and reward employees who find good use cases for chatbots. "Think cash prizes that cover a year's salary," Mollick suggests. "Promotions. Corner offices. The ability to work from home forever. With the potential productivity gains possible due to large language models, these are small prices to pay for truly breakthrough innovation."

It makes no sense for companies to shun a technology that many employees are eager to use — and that makes them more efficient and productive. Before long, smart employers won't be banning GPT use — they'll be celebrating it. In a sense, employees like Blake and Luke and Roberto aren't just getting an advantage at their current jobs. They're getting a résumé-enhancing jump on their future jobs. Eventually, even the most AI-hesitant companies will figure out how to let their employees use tools like ChatGPT — and at that point, they'll actively be seeking to hire workers who possess AI-savviness.

"Once companies feel safe using it, they're going to start to want people who are trained in it," Roberto says. "You'll start seeing on LinkedIn: 'Job applicants must have experience with prompt engineering.'" Sooner or later, using chatbots on the job won't be AI and lie. It'll be AI or die.

Aki Ito is a senior correspondent at Insider.