ChatGPT’s meteoric rise has supplanted dozens of other apps to become top dog in shadow IT rankings, according to a report from spending management firm Productiv.

Productiv analyzed “over 100 billion app usage data points across nearly 100 million SaaS [software as a service] licenses” from 2021 through 2023, according to the report. It identified shadow IT as non-managed apps detected via employee expense reports, network monitoring tools, or use of Google single sign-on.

LinkedIn, via its Business Solutions products, was the number one unauthorized app for the first two years of that period. ChatGPT doesn’t even appear on that list until 2023, when it immediately seized the top slot.

While ChatGPT is popular, it’s not unique. The report noted “nearly every application here offers, or will likely offer, some type of AI functionality.”

“SaaS sprawl,” the term for unchecked accumulation of apps over time, has become a major (and costly) problem in enterprise IT management. Companies that don’t periodically take inventory of software used by employees can complicate their digital topography and end up paying for unnecessary, unapproved, or redundant licenses.

Keep reading here.—TM

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected]. Want to go encrypted? Ask Tom for his Signal.

Hybrid and remote work is now the norm for many businesses. Employees are able to get the job done wherever they are, on whatever devices and apps work best. But working on unmanaged apps and devices can result in unmanaged risk.

So how can you keep your employees happy and productive while protecting your org at the same time? Simple, just secure every part of access with 1Password^Ⓡ Extended Access Management (XAM).

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With extended access management, you’ll be able to secure every sign-in to every application from every device across your org.

Stay on the safe side.

Size matters, at least when it comes to cybersecurity.

That’s according to Ryan Kalember, chief strategy officer at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint, who told IT Brew he worries that tech giant Microsoft’s vulnerabilities and sprawling product offerings could combine to expose severe flaws in the company.

“The rest of us kind of throw up our hands and say, ‘Okay, if Microsoft can’t do this, who can?’” Kalember said.

Make it show. Kalember feels that Microsoft is “playing so many different roles in security that things get really complex and challenging” quickly. The company manages identity on a number of internal platforms, opening the door to potential threats. Microsoft declined to provide comment for this story, referring us instead to a blog post about security.

Threats such as the one Kalember mentioned are also found in the software supply chain, Blackberry VP of Product Security Christine Gadsby told IT Brew at the RSA Conference in early May. Gadsby described the problem as one of “saturation,” where people downloading the same app will be exposed to the same vulnerability, which in effect expands the threat surface.

Read more here.—EH

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

A text-only exchange with ChatGPT is so last year.

In a May 13 presentation, pros at Microsoft-backed artificial-intelligence company OpenAI demonstrated the org’s new AI model—GPT-4o—and its ease comprehending problems like written algebra, code screenshots, and, for good measure, Italian.

The OpenAI team displayed GPT-4o’s lightning-fast, multimodal nature—a capability that IT pros who spoke with IT Brew said may speed up applications in fields like programming and customer-service.

“The fact that they’ve built one model that can interpret and ingest multiple mediums and multiple formats is really impressive from a technology perspective; that’s a pretty big, fundamental shift in the architecture and the way the models work,” Christine Livingston, managing director and global leader of AI services at business-consulting firm Protiviti, told IT Brew.

Read more here.—BH

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected].

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