CultureAI
Book a demo
Manufacturing

Stopping design IP leaking into AI tools across 12 manufacturing sites

Engineers were pasting specifications and code into AI assistants to move faster. For a manufacturer whose value is its designs, that was an existential blind spot.

Industry
Advanced manufacturing
Size
5,500 employees, 12 sites
Region
UK, Europe and APAC
0%

reduction in design IP reaching unapproved AI tools

0%

of flagged events involved design files or source code

0 hrs

to full visibility across 3,000 endpoints

The challenge

Design specifications, CAD exports and firmware source were the crown jewels, and they were exactly what engineers were sharing with AI assistants to debug faster and document less.

With sites across three continents, off-network laptops and a long tail of engineering SaaS, a network chokepoint was never going to see the risk, and re-architecting global traffic through a proxy was a non-starter.

The approach

Discover, control, detect, prove

01

Discover

Lightweight sensors deployed across 3,000 endpoints in two days, on and off the corporate network, with no re-architecture.

02

Control

Guardrails block design files and source code from leaving to unapproved AI destinations, and steer engineers to the sanctioned enterprise assistant.

03

Detect

Pre-trained models recognised source code and technical drawings in prompts and uploads, the events keyword DLP had missed for years.

04

Prove

Site-level reporting showed leadership exactly where IP risk concentrated, and tracked it falling quarter on quarter.

The results

  • Design IP reaching unapproved AI tools fell 94% in the first quarter, while engineers kept an approved assistant for the use cases that were driving adoption.
  • Two-thirds of flagged events involved design files or source code, evidence that finally moved AI risk from a compliance topic to a board priority.
  • No network changes, no latency added to global traffic, and nothing for site IT teams to maintain.
app.culture.ai· PoliciesReal-time
Allows
01Allow ChatGPTAllow
Warnings
02Warn on all unmanaged appsWarn
03Warn on 1min.ai, high-risk usersWarn
Blocks
04Block credential & API-key leaksBlock
05Block apps hosting data in high-risk regionsBlock
Evaluating every interaction in real time: warn · block · guide · allow
“Our DLP had been "protecting" designs for years and never flagged a single AI event. The first week of CultureAI data ended that conversation.”
Group Head of Cyber Security, global manufacturer

Uncover hidden AI risk

Start a free 2-week AI Risk Assessment. Easy setup. Fast visibility.

Start free AI Risk AssessmentTalk to sales