TheCorporateCounsel.net

According to this survey from Deloitte and the Society for Corporate Governance, public companies boards are pretty far from being “all-in” when it comes to the adoption of AI tools for board business. The survey solicited input from corporate secretaries, in-house counsel, and other governance professionals at 92 public companies and 14 private companies. Here’s excerpt with some of the highlights:

– Board adoption of AI/GenAI remains early-stage and inconsistent. Many companies have not formally enabled or standardized AI/GenAI for board activities, with nearly half of public companies not expressly supporting its use. Respondents overall are “unsure” whether their boards use AI/GenAI for board activity, and known adoption and use cases vary across organizations.

– Current use and capability-building efforts are focused on practical applications and education. Boards that use AI/GenAI primarily apply it to administrative and analytical tasks such as reviewing reports, summarizing materials, preparing questions, and identifying discussion topics. Respondents report that their organizations are more commonly enhancing AI capability through management briefings and director education than through formal governance mechanisms, recruitment efforts, or board evaluation processes.

– Policies, guidance, and governance practices are still developing. Most respondents reported a lack of board-specific AI policies or governance practices. Where policies exist, they tend to focus on security, confidentiality, acceptable use, legal considerations, and recordkeeping.

One of the most striking findings was the degree of uncertainty among governance professionals at public companies concerning whether their boards were using AI tools. For example, 71% of respondents were unsure about whether directors had used AI/GenAI tools in meeting-related activities during the past six months, and 72% didn’t know whether the board or any of its committees used AI/GenAI to support key oversight activities during the same period.

Given the potential downside of ill-considered uses of AI tools, these are pretty disconcerting findings.

What about your own use of AI/GenAI tools? We’re very interested in learning how our members are using AI tools in their work, so please take a moment to complete the AI Usage Survey for Corporate & Securities Lawyers that we posted a couple of weeks ago.

– John Jenkins