Best Free Shadow AI Detection Tools of 2026

Willow serves as a comprehensive enterprise platform designed to manage AI agents, tools, MCP servers, skills, and plugins. It facilitates the connection of various agents like Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, n8n, and customized agents to internal frameworks and SaaS applications such as Jira, GitHub, Slack, and databases via an MCP gateway. Each agent is assigned a human-linked identity, specific permissions, and an audit trail for accountability. Security teams are tasked with establishing policies while employees have the ability to self-service approved connectors, skills, and plugins as needed. Among its features are shadow AI discovery, PII redaction, prompt-injection inspection, app- and action-level permissions, as well as integrations for SSO, SCIM, and RBAC with platforms like Okta, Entra ID, and JumpCloud. Additionally, Willow offers capabilities for SIEM export, token and cost tracking, and operates background agents to enhance functionality. The platform is accessible in various deployment models, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, or on-premises within a customer’s VPC. With a SOC 2 Type II attestation and compliance with GDPR, Willow has gained traction and is currently utilized in production by notable companies such as Wix, Innovid, and Riskified, ensuring it meets high industry standards. This versatility and commitment to security make Willow a robust choice for organizations looking to harness the power of AI responsibly.

Kuntur serves as a discovery platform and endpoint inventory system tailored for security and IT teams, focusing on shadow AI. The platform's agent, compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, catalogs various AI applications including desktop software, coding command-line interfaces, multi-cloud platforms, local model runtimes, and extensions for browsers and integrated development environments, along with associated API keys. It meticulously tracks endpoint and user context, encompassing activities within Windows Subsystem for Linux, containers, and virtual machines, subsequently transmitting metadata to a web console for comprehensive fleet analysis, historical changes, and risk assessment. Teams are empowered to classify tools as either approved or unauthorized, maintaining a detailed audit log of these classifications, and are notified when new AI applications or multi-cloud platforms are detected. Additionally, Kuntur provides silent installation packages and deployment documentation to facilitate endpoint management processes. Notably, Kuntur operates in a read-only capacity for discovery purposes, meaning it can identify findings without the ability to block or remove any applications. Furthermore, the agent is designed to flag credential exposures without sending any sensitive information, although reports may still disclose file paths and local usernames for transparency. This functionality ensures that teams have the necessary visibility to manage their AI tools effectively while preserving security.

Akto is an open source, instant API security platform that takes only 60 secs to get started. Akto is used by security teams to maintain a continuous inventory of APIs, test APIs for vulnerabilities and find runtime issues. Akto offers tests for all OWASP top 10 and HackerOne Top 10 categories including BOLA, authentication, SSRF, XSS, security configurations, etc. Akto's powerful testing engine runs variety of business logic tests by reading traffic data to understand API traffic pattern leading to reduced false positives. Akto can integrate with multiple traffic sources - Burpsuite, AWS, postman, GCP, gateways, etc.

VerifyWise offers a comprehensive solution for AI governance, ensuring that businesses can deploy AI models securely, ethically, and in compliance with regulatory requirements. The platform provides key features such as AI framework implementation, real-time monitoring of model performance, audit trails for full transparency, and centralized inventory management for AI models. VerifyWise is built to support regulations like the EU AI Act and is designed to simplify the complex processes of compliance and risk management. With its user-friendly dashboards and open-source, transparent codebase, VerifyWise allows businesses to easily track and manage their AI models, mitigate risks, and ensure accountability throughout their lifecycle.

Knostic functions as a comprehensive platform for enterprise AI security and governance, aiming to safeguard against data leaks and regulate the manner in which large language models utilize and disseminate information within businesses. It implements access controls based on a “need-to-know” principle, which adaptively decides what data an AI can disclose according to the user's role, the context, and their intent, instead of depending solely on conventional file permissions. By concentrating on the knowledge layer that exists between unprocessed data and AI-generated outputs, it scrutinizes how information is inferred, merged, and presented to guarantee that sensitive material is not inadvertently shared. Knostic also ensures ongoing monitoring of AI operations across various applications, including Copilot and other assistants powered by large language models, while pinpointing potential threats like semantic oversharing, exposure through inference, and unauthorized access to knowledge. Furthermore, it conducts simulations of practical prompts to reveal unnoticed vulnerabilities prior to their implementation, assigns numerical risk evaluations, and empowers organizations to apply detailed policies effectively. This dual focus on proactive risk assessment and ongoing governance positions Knostic as an essential tool for safeguarding organizational integrity in the evolving landscape of AI technology.

NeuralTrust is a leading platform to secure and scale LLM agents and applications. It is the fastest open-source AI Gateway in the market, providing zero-trust security for seamless tool connectivity and zero-trust security. Automated red teaming can detect vulnerabilities and hallucinations. Key Features - TrustGate : The fastest open source AI gateway, enabling enterprise to scale LLMs with zero-trust security and advanced traffic management. - TrustTest : A comprehensive adversarial testing framework that detects vulnerabilities and jailbreaks. It also ensures the security and reliability of LLM. - TrustLens : A real-time AI monitoring and observability tool that provides deep analytics and insights into LLM behaviors.