Here’s another stewardship update, but this one is more in line with the incremental updates we’re accustomed to seeing annually. Yesterday, ISS Sustainability Solutions, the sustainable investment arm of ISS STOXX, announced updates to its Governance QualityScore for institutional investors. The updates introduce several new factors and extend existing factors to new markets. The major update for the U.S. is the addition of new factors that assess oversight of AI. Based on the detailed new Methodology Highlights (available for download), the new questions are:

Does the board have oversight over artificial intelligence? (Q468)

How many directors have artificial intelligence skills? (Q469)

Does the company have policies and procedures related to artificial intelligence development, deployment, and monitoring? (Q4 70)

Four new questions for the U.S. market also address vesting periods for variable pay plans (CEO vesting period for time-based options, SARs and restricted stock and performance-based options, SARs and restricted stock).

At the same time, ISS announced a data verification period from November 10 to 21 during which companies can verify and submit changes to their data on all factors, new and old, before scores are made available under the updated methodology.

– Meredith Ervine