A survey of 798 employees at Russian companies # Work is moving to personal accounts: shadow AI in Russian companies > 88% of employees already use AI, yet only one in four says their company has officially rolled it out. More than half of AI users handle work tasks through personal accounts. We surveyed 798 people at Russian companies to see how AI actually fits into their work. Источник: https://pachca.com/en/ai-report 88% of employees already use AI, yet only one in four says their company has officially rolled it out. So employees are taking matters into their own hands: more than half of them use AI through personal accounts. We surveyed 798 people at Russian companies, from engineering and sales to HR, training and finance, to see how AI actually fits into their work. [Try Pachca](https://app.pachca.com/signup) Email me part two This study comes from the team behind Pachca, a team chat app where employees and AI agents work side by side in one workspace, inside your company's infrastructure. Building your own agents? [Check out our developer guide](https://dev.pachca.com/guides/ai-agents/overview). ## Five numbers that sum it up Based on responses from 798 employees at 100+ Russian companies. 01AI is already at work ## Half of employees use AI every day 88% use AI at least occasionally. But here's what matters more: 69% use it daily or several times a week. For them, it's no longer a toy but a go-to work tool. Several times a week or more: 69% 47% 22% 19% 12% Daily Several times a week Occasionally Don't use it All respondents: 798 people 02Companies are falling behind ## Only one in four employees says their company has officially rolled out AI Employees already work with AI, and companies can't keep up. Most say nothing has been rolled out, or that “someone on another team is trying something.” 24% say it's officially rolled out, with tools and policies The other 76% said AI is only partly rolled out, not rolled out at all or that they don't know: No, not rolled out 34% Partly, on some teams 30% Don't know 12% AI users: about 708 people Definition Shadow AI is what this study calls using a personal AI account for work tasks. 03Work slips into the shadows ## 58% of AI users rely on shadow AI 36% of AI users regularly handle work tasks through personal accounts, and another 22% do so from time to time. Shadow AI: 58% 36% 22% 42% Regularly use a personal account Occasionally Don't use a personal account AI users: about 708 people 04Which models people choose ## Personal accounts lean toward foreign models Among those who regularly use a personal account, 88% use foreign models, compared with 65% of everyone else. Russian models show the opposite pattern: 14% vs. 28%. Foreign models 65% 88% Russian models 28% 14% Don't use a personal account Regularly use a personal account Within groups: 248 and 292 people ### What people use overall % of AI users who chose each option (multiple answers allowed) ForeignClaude, ChatGPT, Gemini 77% RussianГигаЧат, YandexGPT 23% Open sourceQwen, Llama 20% The larger the company, the less likely it is to choose foreign models: 86% of respondents at small companies use them, compared with 71% at large ones. Russian models show the opposite pattern: large companies use them more often than small ones (27% vs. 19%). Another 10% of respondents don't know which models their company uses. 05What brings AI out of the shadows ## The more systematically a company rolls out AI, the less shadow AI there is Where AI hasn't been rolled out, 55% of users regularly work from personal accounts. Where it's been rolled out centrally, that number drops to 27%. 55% 43% 27% Not rolled out Partly Centrally Half as much shadow AI The difference shows up at every step: the more a company invests in its AI rollout, the less often employees turn to personal accounts. “The most motivated employees found the new tool on their own, figured it out and pay for the subscription themselves so they can work faster. All companies can do now is catch up with their own people.” ![Grigory Lyubachev](https://pachca.com/assets/ai-report/lyubachev.jpg) Grigory Lyubachev Co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer, Pachca ## AI moved in on its own. Companies haven't noticed yet 88% of employees already use AI, yet only one in four says their company has formalized it with tools and policies. More than half of AI users handle work tasks through personal accounts, most often on foreign models. And where a company provides shared tools and policies, employees turn to personal accounts half as often. The question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how quickly you can give employees an official tool and clear rules for using it. ## How we collected the data ### Who we surveyed From June 30 to July 18, 2026, we surveyed employees of Russian companies. The AI section includes responses from 798 people: 104 from small companies, 311 from mid-sized and 383 from large ones. Respondents weren't just developers: 341 came from engineering and IT, 108 from operations, sales and HR, 106 from marketing and support, 103 from training and 33 from finance. Questions about tasks, models and personal accounts were asked only of AI users, about 708 people. ### How to read the numbers Our sample includes more digital teams than the market average, so treat the percentages as an upper-bound estimate. Comparisons between groups show correlation, not causation. All percentages are based on the people who answered each specific question. We excluded some responses that failed our quality checks. This shifts the final percentages by no more than 1.5 percentage points. Some responses in the large-company segment were collected within individual organizations. ### Using the data Feel free to use the numbers and charts with a link to the Pachca study. For comments, email [team@pachca.com](mailto:team@pachca.com). ## This is just part one Part two covers how companies roll out AI agents: the approaches they take, how deeply agents are built into everyday work and how companies solve the problem of sharing context. We'll email it to you as soon as it's ready. ## Connect AI agents to Pachca This study comes from the team behind Pachca, a team chat app built for modern teams. We're building a workspace where AI agents work alongside employees, inside the company's official infrastructure. [Try Pachca](https://app.pachca.com/signup)