New data from SAP Concur has apparently confirmed employees are still ignoring company policies, with three in four UK business travellers using (or would use) unapproved AI tools.

Data from the company’s Global Business Travel Survey shows that, while organisations are investing heavily in AI, they’re not giving workers access to the right tools.

As a result, employees are opting to use other, more suitable alternatives and often prefer publicly available chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini.

Two in five (43%) said they use unapproved tools because they prefer different options to what they’re provided, but one-third (32%) say their organisation doesn’t even offer any AI tools to support planning or booking travel, forcing them to look elsewhere.

The data shows that remote workers (81%) are more likely to use shadow AI than office-based employees (71%), as are younger workers like Gen Z (79%) and Millennials (76%) compared with Gen X (62%) and Boomers (49%).

As for what employees are looking for when it comes to AI supporting their travel needs, the biggest use case is planning itineraries (37%). Tracking expenses (30%), assessing travel risks (26%), making changes to their trip (24%) and completing expense reports (21%) are also common use cases for the productivity-boosting technology.

But business leaders already know the scale of the problem – 100% of CFOs are concerned about shadow AI in business travel, the report found.

“Leaders must educate workers on the risks and provide T&E tools that deliver the desired level of AI support,” EMEA VP for Concur Travel Paul Dear noted.

Looking ahead, the fix must come from organisations – workers clearly aren’t too keen on having to navigate to third-party tools, and are doing it out of necessity. More than a third actually want their AI tools integrated into their productivity software (38%), communications platforms (36%) and CRM systems (32%).