Artificial Intelligence tools like Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and Google Gemini are transforming how employees do their work. AI models promise huge efficiency gains, from drafting documents to analyzing data, but like any new technology these tools also introduce new security challenges for organizations to manage.

For business leaders, the key question isn’t if you should adopt AI—it’s how to adopt it responsibly. That’s where Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms can play a vital role to mitigate and manage the associated risks.

The Business Risk of Unmonitored AI

AI assistants can connect directly to your business data. Employees’ prompts and queries could involve sensitive financial information, customer records, or intellectual property. While vendors like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI build strong safeguards into their platforms, the real-world risk comes from employees and what information they choose to share.

Consider these scenarios:

• An executive leaks confidential plans for a layoff while analyzing the financial impacts.
• An employee accidentally exposes financial reports while testing queries.
• A compromised account uses AI tools to harvest company data at scale.
• Client data is accidentally exposed while reviewing legal agreements.

Without monitoring, these activities can slip by unnoticed. With monitoring audit logs can detect when content is being queried, accessed, or downloaded. Let’s take a deeper look and see exactly how this could play out.

Example: Detecting Risky AI Use Around Sensitive Layoff Plans

Imagine your HR team has uploaded a document detailing upcoming layoffs. Initially, only a few executives need access. The next day, a user outside HR accesses the file, then runs an AI tool like Copilot to summarize it. Shortly after, an email is sent to an external address.

A modern SIEM would correlate these events: unusual file access, AI usage referencing sensitive content, and outbound data movement. It would generate an alert for your security team, enabling them to investigate immediately.

In this way, SIEM helps prevent leaks before confidential plans reach the wrong hands—protecting your business, and your reputation.

How SIEM Monitors AI

A modern SIEM can ingest usage logs from AI platforms (Microsoft Copilot, and enterprise versions of ChatGPT or Gemini). SIEM monitors AI by collecting, analyzing, and correlating logs generated by AI platforms and the systems they interact with. Essentially, it treats your AI tools like any other part of your IT environment that could access sensitive data or be exploited. Here’s how it work in practice:

1. Log Collection

• AI Platform Logs: Enterprise AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT Enterprise, or Google Gemini for Workspace produce audit logs of user activity. These logs show who queried the AI, when, and sometimes what data or files were referenced.
• Supporting Systems: SIEM also ingests logs from email, cloud storage, endpoint devices, and network traffic to give context around AI activity.

2. Behavior Analysis

• User Behavior Monitoring: SIEM can identify unusual AI usage, like queries from a non-authorized user, unusually high query volume, or access from atypical locations.
• Data Sensitivity Checks: By correlating AI activity with sensitive documents or files, SIEM can detect when confidential data is being referenced or potentially exposed.

3. Correlation and Alerts

• The SIEM correlates multiple events (AI queries, file access, email transfers) to detect potential misuse or compromise.
• Alerts are generated for security teams to investigate abnormal patterns before data is exfiltrated or leaked.

4. Policy Enforcement

• SIEM can help enforce governance policies by flagging non-compliant usage of AI tools, such as exporting sensitive data via AI or using unauthorized plugins.

Utilizing a SIEM to monitor AI usage can turn increased AI adoption from a blind spot into a managed business risk.

Building Confidence in AI Adoption

AI isn’t going away and neither are the associated risks. Organizations that adopt AI with oversight will pull ahead of those who hesitate or ignore security precautions and suffer the consequences. By extending SIEM monitoring to AI tools, you:

• Give executives and boards assurance that AI productivity gains don’t come at the cost of compliance.
• Empower security teams with the visibility they need to respond quickly to AI risks.
• Demonstrate to customers and regulators that AI is being embraced responsibly.

How Advanticom Can Help

At Advanticom, we help organizations bring security and innovation together. Our team works with our clients to manage technical risks and implement monitoring systems that protect your data without slowing down your employees.  We can help configure audit logging and integrating AI monitoring into your SIEM to stop issues before they escalate.  As a result you gain the benefits of AI while keeping your most valuable assets protected.