Omnissa Finds Shadow AI and Instability Drive IT Visibility Needs
Talent Management / Employee Experience | 5 min read
Omnissa, a leading digital work platform company, has released its State of Digital Workspace 2026 report — a global study of telemetry data analysed across millions of Omnissa-managed enterprise endpoints between January and December 2025. The findings reveal a fragmented IT landscape where AI adoption, device diversity, and uneven security posture are making enterprise environments more difficult for IT teams to fully manage and secure.
"The central question becomes how you close blind spots fast enough to keep pace with AI, platform diversity, and distributed work. Converging DEX, security, and management telemetry provides essential context that helps teams close the gap between what they assume about the workspace and what telemetry shows is really occurring."
— Hemant Sahani, Vice President of Product Management, Omnissa
Trend 1: Shadow AI — Growing Nearly 1,000% Year-Over-Year
AI adoption inside the enterprise is accelerating faster than organisations can govern. Employees are introducing new tools into their daily workflows — often entirely outside IT governance — creating a widening gap between the tools IT deploys and the ones employees actually use. The report found that usage of AI assistant apps grew nearly 1,000% in 2025 across all major operating systems. Key findings on AI deployment across managed devices include:
- • Copilot was deployed on 97.5% of enterprise-managed mobile devices across both iOS and Android
- • ChatGPT was installed on 91% of enterprise-managed iOS systems — employee-installed, outside IT governance
- • Gemini was installed on 61% of enterprise-managed Android systems — also predominantly employee-installed
Trend 2: The Hidden Productivity Cost of Device Instability
Employee productivity is directly tied to the quality of the digital employee experience (DEX). Even small disruptions accumulate — workers require almost 24 minutes to refocus after a disruption. Omnissa telemetry reveals that Windows environments are significantly more prone to workflow-disrupting instability than macOS:
- • Windows devices exhibited 3.1 times more total forced shutdowns than macOS
- • Windows experienced 2.2 times more total application crashes than macOS
- • Windows experienced 7.5 times more application hangs than macOS — the starkest gap across all stability metrics
Trend 3: Security Hygiene — A Blind Spot in Regulated Industries
Organisations in highly regulated industries operate under the strictest compliance requirements — yet the report finds they rank among the lowest in maintaining device updates and data encryption. Healthcare, pharma, and education sectors exhibit significant compliance gaps:
- • More than 50% of Windows and Android devices in healthcare and pharma were five major OS versions behind
- • More than 50% of education desktops and mobile devices are unencrypted — a critical exposure in a sector handling sensitive student and institutional data
Trend 4: Device Lifecycle and TCO — Mac vs. Windows Investment Horizons
As workforce roles and operational requirements vary across industries, organisations are shifting from a one-size-fits-all device strategy toward a persona-based approach. One of the report's most actionable findings is the difference in asset lifespan: organisations purchasing Macs are investing in six-year assets, while those purchasing Windows PCs are investing in three-year assets — a critical difference that fundamentally changes the ROI calculation and procurement strategy for IT leaders. Granular telemetry data is essential to align device investments with actual lifecycle value and employee role requirements.
Key Takeaways
- • Omnissa's State of Digital Workspace 2026 report — drawn from millions of enterprise endpoints — finds AI adoption, shadow AI, device instability, and security gaps are fragmenting IT visibility at scale.
- • AI assistant app usage grew nearly 1,000% in 2025 — with ChatGPT on 91% of enterprise iOS devices and Gemini on 61% of Android, largely installed by employees outside IT governance.
- • Windows environments experience 7.5x more app hangs, 3.1x more forced shutdowns, and 2.2x more app crashes than macOS — creating a significant hidden productivity drain given the 24-minute refocus cost per disruption.
- • Over 50% of devices in healthcare, pharma, and education are five major OS updates behind or unencrypted — a high-stakes compliance blind spot in the industries that need it least.
- • Mac purchases represent six-year asset investments vs. three years for Windows PCs — telemetry-driven lifecycle data is essential for persona-based device strategies and accurate TCO modelling.