As GenAI adoption ramped up across the business, this fast-moving fintech hit a familiar wall: how to let teams explore tools like ChatGPT and Gemini without exposing sensitive data or breaching compliance rules.

Despite having modern DLP and CASB tools in place, they lacked the behavioural insights and real-time context needed to guide employee use of GenAI tools. Shadow AI use was growing, and SecOps lacked clear visibility into which incidents required intervention.

They turned to Culture AI, the Secure AI Usage Enablement Platform, to solve this.

The Challenge: Shadow AI, Manual Triage, and Cultural Friction

By mid-2025, the fintech’s teams were already using GenAI widely - but not always safely:

The Solution: Secure GenAI Usage Without Lockdown

The deployment was fast - live in under 6 hours - and began delivering impact almost immediately.

Beyond Detection: Shaping Secure AI Culture

One of the most valuable outcomes was the cultural shift:

With initial success validated, the fintech is:

This case study shows how a leading fintech organisation used our platform to gain control over generative AI usage without blocking innovation. By focusing on human behaviour, real-time intervention, and team-level trends—not just raw telemetry or just blocking access—the company reduced AI-related risk, saved time for security teams, and laid the groundwork for scalable, compliant AI adoption.

Want to learn more about how Culture AI can help your teams use AI safely, securely, and smartly? Book a Demo 

Learn how a global fintech company stopped over 20 sensitive data leaks to GenAI tools daily—without blocking innovation. This case study explores how Culture AI delivered real-time risk insights, behaviour-led coaching, and automated triage to enable secure, scalable AI adoption across 3,600 employees.

Empowering Safe GenAI Adoption at a 3,600-Employee Fintech — And Stopping 20+ Data Leaks a Day

Empowering Safe GenAI Adoption at a 3,600-Employee Fintech

As generative AI tools such as ChatGPT became widely available, employees at a prominent international law firm began using them informally across functions - drafting documents, updating CVs, and exploring ways to automate research. While the firm had implemented its own internal AI assistant based on OpenAI, leadership knew that unsanctioned usage of external tools - also known as shadow AI - was growing fast.

The firm’s CISO recognised that these tools were being used with good intent but posed significant risks. Confidential client data, PII, and even fragments of source code could potentially be exposed to public AI models, breaching privacy obligations and regulatory standards. At the same time, a blanket ban on GenAI tools was seen as overly restrictive and likely to drive such behaviour further underground.

“We were caught between risk and reality,” the CISO explained. “Our people wanted to experiment with AI to work more efficiently. We just needed to ensure it was being done safely.”

What the firm needed was a way to see exactly what tools were being used, identify when risk was introduced, and guide employees in real time, all without blocking innovation or adding friction to daily work.

The firm partnered with CultureAI to implement a secure AI usage enablement strategy that combined visibility, proactive protection, and behaviour change at scale.

CultureAI was deployed to track GenAI activity across the web, including both sanctioned and shadow tools. Usage was categorised and surfaced through a central dashboard, allowing the security team to identify which GenAI applications were being used, by whom, and for what types of tasks. Crucially, tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini were flagged automatically, and new ones could be detected as soon as they appeared.

To tackle high-risk behaviours, CultureAI introduced real-time controls that could detect when users were about to paste sensitive information - such as PII, source code, or confidential client data - into GenAI tools. These prompts were either blocked automatically or intercepted with a customised in-browser coaching message explaining the risk and suggesting safer alternatives, such as the firm’s internal AI assistant.

This in-the-moment intervention proved far more effective than after-the-fact alerts. Employees received contextual guidance while working, helping them understand the organisation’s expectations and reinforcing safe AI use.

CultureAI also helped the firm automate triage for critical risks. When source code or regulated data was detected, alerts were routed to the security team via lightweight playbooks directly into existing SIEM workflows. Meanwhile, the platform’s “audit mode” allowed the firm to see broader trends in AI usage, helping the CISO evaluate policies based on real data before enforcing changes.

Privacy concerns were addressed through CultureAI’s privacy-safe approach, which ensured that employee actions were monitored without invasive logging and that no sensitive documents were used to train any models.

Over the first three months, the firm saw measurable risk reduction and increased employee awareness:

Importantly, the firm did not need to default to a full ban on public GenAI use. Instead, the security team could justify its position with real data, and interventions were tailored to specific behaviours rather than applied indiscriminately.

“Our goal wasn’t to shut everything down,” said the CISO. “We wanted to enable AI safely, not stifle it. CultureAI gave us the confidence to do that.”

With the foundation in place, the firm is planning to expand its approach by:

This case demonstrates that even in highly regulated, risk-sensitive environments, organisations can embrace the future of work—so long as they pair visibility with real-time behavioural intervention. With CultureAI, the firm didn’t just reduce AI risk. It helped build a safer, smarter culture of innovation. 

Discover how a leading international law firm secured generative AI (GenAI) usage without sacrificing productivity. Facing growing concerns over shadow AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude, the firm partnered with CultureAI to gain full visibility into GenAI activity, prevent data loss, and coach employees in real time. Within just three months, they blocked 98% of high-risk AI submissions—such as PII, source code, and confidential data—while avoiding a blanket ban.

Learn how CultureAI enabled proactive GenAI governance through browser-based controls, automated risk triage, privacy-first monitoring, and behaviour-based nudging. The firm identified 20+ shadow tools, delivered over 120 monthly in-the-moment interventions, and created a safer culture of AI innovation—proving that regulated industries can adopt GenAI responsibly without compromising compliance.

How an International Law Firm Prevented 98% of High-Risk GenAI Submissions Without Locking Down Innovation

Case Study: How an International Law Firm Prevented 98% of High-Risk GenAI Submissions Without Locking Down Innovation

When a fast-scaling digital bank began seeing widespread employee adoption of generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, their security team faced a growing dilemma: how do you protect sensitive data without shutting down innovation?

Despite having a mature security stack — including SIEM, DLP, CASB, and MDM - the team lacked clear visibility into how AI was being used, especially when accessed through personal accounts on corporate devices. Risky behaviours, like copying internal code into AI tools or reusing passwords across unmonitored SaaS apps, weren’t being detected in real time. And even when alerts were triggered, the signal-to-noise ratio was poor — overwhelming the SecOps team and eroding trust in the data.

The bank needed a new approach: not just another tool to block usage, but a smarter, more nuanced way to 

From Risk to Resilience: Enabling GenAI Without Fear

By deploying our secure AI usage enablement platform, the bank was able to quickly gain visibility and control over employee AI behaviour - without slowing productivity.

The first step was understanding who was using AI, how, and where. Our platform provided real-time telemetry on prompt-level activity, flagging use of generative AI tools via personal accounts on corporate machines - a major data loss vector that existing tools couldn’t see.

Next, the security team created role-based policies. Sets of employees from specific departments licensed to use Gemini were placed in an “approved” group, while unlicensed users remained under stricter monitoring. This conditional logic allowed the platform to suppress noise and 

, while still escalating the risks that truly mattered.

Rather than punishing users or forcing them to work around controls, the bank used real-time browser nudges to guide behaviour at the moment of risk. If someone tried to paste source code into an AI tool, for example, a discreet message explained the risk and offered a course-correct.

Over the first month, the platform delivered more than 

, helping employees learn what was safe and what wasn’t, without slowing them down.

In parallel, the platform’s SaaS visibility layer surfaced several AI-enabled tools that had been adopted organically across the business. In one instance, more than 100 employees had accessed a new AI-powered productivity app that wasn’t part of the approved stack. The security team received an alert before the tool gained deeper traction, allowing them to assess the risk and take appropriate action - all within a few days, rather than weeks.

In just a few weeks, the bank saw tangible results:

Buoyed by the early success, the bank is now planning to expand deployment across customer support and operations, and introduce deeper integrations into their security tech stack. 

Their journey reflects a broader shift happening across the industry: from blocking AI to 

enabling it — responsibly, safely, and at scale

Want to understand how Culture AI can help your business? Book a call with our team

See how a high-growth digital bank protected sensitive data while enabling safe GenAI adoption across the enterprise. Faced with growing employee use of tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, the bank’s security team needed more than traditional DLP or SIEM. They lacked visibility into shadow AI usage, especially via personal accounts, and were overwhelmed by noisy alerts.

By partnering with CultureAI, the bank deployed a secure AI usage enablement platform that delivered real-time visibility, contextual nudges, and role-based risk policies — without blocking tools or slowing teams down. Within weeks, they reduced shadow AI usage by 80%, eliminated false positives, improved SaaS discovery time by 70%, and delivered over 2,000 just-in-time behavioural interventions.

This case study highlights how modern security teams can manage AI risk without creating friction -  by shifting from control to enablement and building trust with employees.

How a Digital Bank Reduced Shadow AI Risk by 80% - Without Blocking Innovation

Case Study: How a Digital Bank Reduced Shadow AI Risk by 80% — Without Blocking Innovation

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Empowering Safe GenAI Adoption at a 3,600-Employee Fintech — And Stopping 20+ Data Leaks a Day

How an International Law Firm Prevented 98% of High-Risk GenAI Submissions Without Locking Down Innovation

How a Digital Bank Reduced Shadow AI Risk by 80% - Without Blocking Innovation