Bots in the boardroom: Could an AI ever replace board directors?

Résumé détaillé

Boards are using AI to summarize papers, rehearse meetings, and challenge management, often without a formal policy. As directors grow more comfortable with the technology, experts discuss what the boardroom of the future may look like.

Board members are busy putting AI to work, using it to summarize lengthy papers, track market trends, and answer their questions. But some boards are going one step further and giving AI a seat.

Diligent, makes software that directors use to share documents and run meetings. 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. “I love the idea,” they said. “I’d immediately replace a couple of my board members with AI.” He then asked whether it could be priced at half what he pays his directors. “I want to make them nervous,” the CEO said.

The exchange, though spoken half in jest, raises a serious question: How far can, and should, AI go in the boardroom? 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.

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.

Pippa Begg, chief executive of Board Intelligence, which builds AI software for boards, says that AI could eventually sit in on meetings and be “able to almost interrupt and say: ‘Hang on, I think you’re falling into this trap.’ Or: ‘I disagree.’” However, giving it a formal legal vote, she added, would be “a dangerous leap.”

AI brings clear advantages to the boardroom, says Joanne McEnteggart, global head of debt, capital markets, and corporate at IQ-EQ, a fund-services firm that administers around 30,000 board meetings a year across 25 countries. “AI can assimilate information quickly and dissect years of data,” she says.

Some boards have reportedly used it to break a stalemate during discussions, a role usually…

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