Get on Board! How to Navigate Generative AI Conversations at Your Next Board Meeting

In a recent survey from the National Association of Corporate Directors, 95 percent of board members believe that the adoption of AI is going to impact their business greatly. However, only 10 percent believe that their executive teams are highly proficient in AI. Moreover, fewer than a third of boards regularly have AI on their agendas.

Translation: Board members see what’s coming, but they don’t think their executives are ready for it, and they’re not doing anything about it.

Even before AI came on the scene, the dynamics at play between boards and executives within an organization have been, well, complicated. Let’s explore the purpose of boards.?

The Role of Boards

Boards don’t, in fact, run the company. But the executives who do run the company can’t effectively do so without their oversight.?

Here’s why: Boards oversee the organization’s management, particularly with the hiring, evaluating, and compensating of the CEO and other top executives. They also approve corporate strategy and ensure that the financial statements are accurate.?

Boards have three key legal responsibilities: duties of care, loyalty, and obedience. As board members, they make decisions on behalf of the organization, that they put the organization ahead of their personal and professional goals, and that ensure that the organization is complying with various rules and regulations.?

And typically, most boards tend to spend 80 percent of their time looking at what’s happened in the past. They spend the remainder of their time thinking about what’s to come. The best-functioning boards—and the ones that have the most productive relationship with their executives—are the ones doing the exact opposite.

They’re spending a very small amount of time looking retroactively, while 80 percent of their time is focused on ensuring the future success of the organization. And these days, the future success of the organization is going to be deeply dependent on generative AI.

Why Boards Need AI on Their Agendas—And How to Make It Happen

Generative AI is poised to be highly transformational for organizations, yet boards are often abstaining from taking a strong view on what's happening. In fact, only 12 percent of boards at Fortune 500 companies have a standing technology committee on their boards. They’ve got one for audit and compensation and likely one for cybersecurity or compliance, but not technology.?

One of the reasons boards don’t have AI on their agendas is because, simply, they don’t know how to ask the right questions.?

7 Generative AI Questions Boards Should Be Able to Answer

The following is a list of seven must-ask questions. Of course, board members can and should take this list to their next meeting with their executive team and say, “We should be addressing these issues.” Executives, too, can use this list by taking it to their board members and saying, “I need your guidance on these topics.”?

1. What are our business opportunities?

2. What are the regulatory and ethical issues that we need to address?

3. What data is being used by our generative AI tools and how is it being managed?

4. What monitoring and oversight do we need to have in place?

5. How do we manage—knowing we can’t ever eliminate—the risk?

6. What are the workforce implications?

7. What are the change-management issues, and how will our executives communicate them?

3 Ways to Get Boards to Support Generative AI Initiatives

Getting your board on board with generative AI is crucial.?

1. Foster educational opportunities.

Give board members relevant articles and reports and then discuss them at your board meetings. At the most basic level, this will allow everyone to use the same language and frameworks.?

Invite experts to these meetings. My advice? Bring in someone more strategic in their focus, not technical. This isn’t the time to dive deeply into large learning models or autonomous agents. A data scientist who can explain generative AI may be interesting, but you're better off making sure that the expert can talk about what generative AI can do—and the implications around that.?

2. Determine board oversight of generative AI.

People often ask: Should a committee handle this, or should the whole board be involved? Do we need to add someone with business technology expertise to the board? Should we form an advisory board of outside experts and practitioners to tap into as we have questions?

The best practice, I’ve found, is that the more strategic you anticipate generative AI bring to the company, the more oversight the board needs to have. Seems obvious, right? But the reality is that companies are at this imbalanced point, in which they know they need to be focused more on AI while the knowledge to be able to guide the organization at a strategic level is not there yet. Have patience – develop the expertise first, apply the appropriate oversight, and adjust as the strategy evolves.?

3. Have generative AI on the agenda at every board meeting.

Boards should not wait for their executives to put this topic on the agenda.?

The worst excuse for not engaging in generative AI conversations is, “We’re not doing anything yet because we haven’t gotten around to it.” Even if executives are saying that they are taking a pass on instituting AI but are continuing to monitor it, that’s at least a strategic approach. And it can still be an agenda item to understand when (not if) it moves into more active planning and execution.?

I hope this helps your board elevate the generative AI conversation from the day-to-day tactical details and into the bigger picture.??

Your Turn

Whether you’re a board member or a chief executive, how have you brought generative AI strategy into your meetings? What questions from the list are the hardest for your board to answer?