I recently sat down with @Marc-Huffman, the CEO of OnBoard, to discuss how AI is changing how board portals function – and as a result how boards can be more effective. I later sat with Miles Hitchcock of Diligent, when we discussed similar uses of AI. (Check out posts by Tom McLeod for insights on the use of AI by internal audit functions.)
I worked with boards for over twenty years, and saw these major problems:
- A massive amount of detailed information, usually hundreds of packed pages, was given to the boards for every meeting.
- There was limited time to read and absorb, let alone think about the information before the meetings. Sometimes, reports were not provided more than a day or two in advance, with revisions coming even on the day of the meeting.
- Valuable meeting time was consumed by reading the material and asking questions about it, rather than having constructive conversations about what it meant and what to do.
- Each information provider (such as the CFO, COO, CISO, CIO, CAE, etc.) had their own way of sharing information.
- Sometimes what was reported in one report conflicted with what was in another.
I came away with these insights.
The integration of AI into Board Portals (when management enables the AI to access management reports and other information) serves as a…
