I recently heard from a colleague who built a small web application with Google AI Studio.
It wasn't a big project. He was annoyed by a repetitive task, so he spent a few hours building a tool that made his workflow much easier.
To be honest, I liked it.
It's satisfying to see someone remove a piece of friction from their day instead of just complaining about it.
The funny thing is, he wanted to share the tool with a colleague.
So he sent him the source code.
He was happy with that. His colleague would open it and everything would work just like it did on his machine, with no extra steps.
Of course, it didn't.
I don't think he had really thought about what was happening behind the scenes. I mean, why would he? The app worked. The problem was solved. That's usually where people stop thinking about software.
He realized that there's a difference between software that works for one person and software that works for multiple people. Yeah, for people who know what they're doing, this was pretty easy to see coming.
I liked his approach to the problem, though.
A few hours earlier, he was struggling.
A few hours later, he had found a solution.
The more I thought about it, the more it reminded me of discussions about shadow IT. For those who aren't tech-savvy, it's basically a term companies use when employees start using their own software, tools, or processes without going through the IT department.
Which, if I'm honest, is pretty much what my colleague had done.
People often ask why employees keep building their own tools, spreadsheets, scripts, databases, and now AI-generated applications.
But I'm not sure that's the most interesting question.
Most people don't wake up wanting to maintain software. They don't dream about version control, backups, access management, support requests, compliance reviews, or documentation. Well, maybe someone dreams about documentation, but I've never met them.
People usually just want to get their work done.
Some people will (understandably) do it themselves if it seems faster than going through the official process. I'm not a fan either. It's frustrating to wait for a simple process to finish (and then there are 20 more of them).
That doesn't mean the IT department is wrong, though.
As soon as my colleague tried to share his application, he ran into the kind of problem IT departments are supposed to solve.
How does someone install it?
Where does it run?
What happens when it breaks?
Who maintains it?
What happens when the person who built it leaves?
None of this was an issue when it was just his personal tool. But as soon as someone else wanted to use it, the answers suddenly mattered a lot.
That's probably why I have a hard time seeing shadow IT as the real problem.
It often feels more like a symptom.
People don't build their own solutions because they secretly want to become software developers.
Most of the time they build them because waiting feels more expensive. Maybe not financially. But in terms of time, frustration and actually getting work done.
The department wants a solution now.
Meanwhile, IT wants security, governance, maintenance, support, backups, access controls, and all the other boring things that only become important after something is successful.
Both sides are acting rationally.
They're just focusing on different things.
One side is trying to solve today's problem.
The other is trying to make sure today's solution doesn't become next year's problem.
Maybe that's why shadow IT never really goes away.