Bots in the boardroom: Could an AI ever replace board directors?
“That’s good,” she says, “because it challenges thought.” “I’d immediately replace a couple of my board members with AI.” One place Stafford sees AI playing a big role is reducing boards’ reliance on external advisors, with AI specialists filling gaps in directors’ knowledge.
Key points
- Nearly half (49%) of directors say their board is actively reviewing which decisions should continue to be made by humans as the capabilities of AI improve, according to a survey of more than 400 directors, CEOs and CFOs by Board Intelligence.
- While many executives remain hesitant about using AI in this setting, others are experimenting with creating digital replicas of colleagues to rehearse potentially difficult boardroom discussions, according to Stafford.
- McEnteggart says: “A bot cannot be held personally responsible in law nor can anyone vouch that it is fit and proper to sit on a board.” Freebairn is aware of boards that have given a bot a seat and a vote, though it remains “very uncommon.” Doing so, he says, means “accepting a robot adds as much value as a human”.
There is a risk AI could become a new source of boardroom groupthink if directors lean too heavily on a tool few fully understand, says Mark Freebairn, head of the board practice at search firm Odgers.
Additional details
- When its boss, Brain Strafford, told one chief executive about the company’s new board bot, their response hinted at where the technology may be headed.
- In April, Lloyds Banking Group became the first FTSE 100 firm to acknowledge it deploys an AI agent to support boardroom activities, The Times reported.
- Its executives and directors reportedly use the bot for agenda planning and analysis before high-level meetings, and to help mitigate human bias.
- Board members are busy putting AI to work, using it to summarize lengthy papers, track market trends, and answer their questions.
- Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, Samruk-Kazyna, appointed an AI board member called SKAI and gave it voting rights last year.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
Advertisement
Every article behind this summary — 1 article from 1 outlet
Get stories like this in your inbox.
Subscribe — it's freeOne free email at 6am — your topics, deduplicated, five minutes. No account, no paywall.