Deloitte finds UK workers spend nearly £1B on AI for work

British workers are collectively spending nearly £1 billion ($1.4 billion) per year of their own money on generative AI tools to use at work. That’s according to Deloitte’s inaugural GenAI Workforce Survey, conducted by Ipsos and covering 25,000 UK workers.

The rise of shadow AI

About 17% of UK workers are personally funding access to generative AI tools for professional tasks. Think premium ChatGPT subscriptions, Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and the growing constellation of productivity-focused AI products.

Two-thirds of surveyed workers, roughly 66%, said they’ve at least experimented with these tools. Nearly one-quarter, 24%, use them every single day.

Surveyed users reported saving an average of 70 minutes per week on tasks like searching for information, drafting emails, and summarizing documents.

31% of workers using these tools are doing so without their company’s knowledge.

What this means for employers and AI providers

For employers, there’s the security and compliance dimension. Unregulated AI usage creates blind spots in data governance. Organizations that don’t know which tools their employees are using can’t ensure those tools meet internal standards for data handling, accuracy, or ethical use. The 31% shadow usage figure should be setting off alarms in every CISO’s office across the country.

For AI tool providers, the survey points to a massive and still largely untapped enterprise opportunity in the UK market. If individual workers are spending nearly £1B annually on their own, the addressable market for corporate licenses, enterprise plans, and compliant AI solutions is substantially larger.

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