How Bendix Technology Center Uncovered Shadow AI Across Its Clients

Bendix Technology Center is a managed IT and managed print provider based in Watertown, South Dakota, about 100 miles north of Sioux Falls. The business traces its roots to break-fix work in the late 1990s, moved into service level agreements, and formally launched its MSP practice in 2015 after the team decided there had to be a better way than driving to every client to run Windows updates.

Today, Chief Security Officer Joe Giovannettone and his team manage nearly 600 endpoints, from servers to laptops to desktops. The company's biggest niche is agriculture, serving large agricultural co-ops that run everything from grain elevators to convenience stores, alongside clients in manufacturing, legal, and healthcare.

Endpoints and servers were locked down, but the browser was a black box.

Like most mature MSPs, Bendix had strong coverage where it counted. Endpoints, servers, and laptops were monitored and hardened, and unapproved applications were blocked. But as more of their clients' daily work moved into web-based applications and automations, Giovannettone and his team realized a growing share of activity was happening somewhere their existing tools couldn't see.

That gap mattered beyond threat detection. With so much of the modern workday spent in the browser, from accessing business applications and collaborating with colleagues to handling sensitive company information, Giovannettone wanted to give his clients' executives real metrics on browser activity rather than impressions. And that was before the wave of AI tools arrived, each one another browser tab where company information could quietly end up.

Atakama became part of the minimum security stack every new client must meet.

Giovannettone met the Atakama team at an industry networking event, and a conversation about browser security grew into a partnership. Atakama, a browser security platform that runs as a lightweight service and browser extension, gave Bendix the layer of visibility it had been missing. The team rolls it out through its RMM, and Giovannettone says the product "pretty much installs itself," with end users rarely noticing anything at all, which is exactly how the best security tools should work: protecting users without getting in their way.

Extension management quickly became one of the most valuable pieces. Over the past five years, Bendix moved every client to a default deny, allow by exception model, and Atakama carries that same approach into the browser. Every extension is blocked unless the team approves it, and because policy is tied to the signed-in browser, enforcement doesn't end at the office door.

Password hygiene insights and Atakama's recent health reporting updates round out what the team relies on day to day. Giovannettone describes those health reports as concise, ready to present, and packed with specific metrics that show clients what is really happening in their environment.

Unapproved AI tools come to light, and Bendix becomes the adviser clients turn to on AI policy.

The Atakama report Bendix brings to each quarterly business review has turned up activity leadership had no idea was happening, including employees who had installed consumer AI assistants on their own and were copying and pasting company information between them to compare results.

With that evidence in hand, the team has tightened controls and worked with C-level executives to define how employees should use the web and AI. Giovannettone is careful to frame these conversations around security rather than surveillance. The goal isn't tracking who is on social media over lunch; it's making sure employees use approved AI tools and understand what company-sensitive information should never be shared with them.

The same capability has shaped how Bendix goes to market. The team positions itself as the local expert in cybersecurity and in AI adoption, featuring its browser-level approach in radio spots and on its website. Giovannettone also raises browser security regularly in the industry groups he belongs to, including a third-party security testing group whose members, he says, have become strong advocates of Atakama for the visibility it provides.