Boards are placing a greater emphasis on AI as a strategic issue, to the point of questioning whether the technology is making their governance models outdated, according to a pair of reports.

The National Association of Corporate Directors’ latest quarterly survey of board members of publicly traded companies, released last week, found that AI is top concern. Sixty-five percent of respondents listed it among the top five business issues on their agendas, followed by shifting economic conditions (52 percent), cybersecurity threats (43 percent), geopolitical volatility (38 percent), and regulatory requirements (27 percent). NACD surveyed 132 board members between June 16 and 30.

Boards’ interest in AI has skyrocketed in the past year, rising from 27 percent of respondents to an NACD survey in early 2025. Concerns around AI are closely tied to concerns around cybersecurity, according to the report: “One respondent concisely summarizes the sentiment of many directors on the matter, noting that cybersecurity threats are ‘ever present and being [exacerbated] by AI.’”

That shift, combined with respondents’ focus on economic and geopolitical challenges, suggests that boards are being asked to respond to higher levels of uncertainty than usual. And the struggles coincide with another survey suggesting that boards need a structure that allows them to be more responsive.

According to Board Intelligence’s Board Index Report (PDF), based on a survey of international board directors, CEOs, and CFOs, poor processes have hamstrung boards. “86 percent of directors say that overly rigid or inconsistent processes have led to delayed, rushed, or poor decisions in the past six months,” the report says. “Forty-one percent say their board spends half or more of meeting time reviewing past performance rather than planning ahead.”

Those shortcomings have added up to a community of leaders with remarkably little faith in their ability to affect change. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (63 percent) say their board “is not an essential tool for value creation,” while 15 percent of respondents say “their board adds little or no value at all.”

Innovation, when it happens, typically focuses on matters around boards’ decisions around resource allocation rather than ideas developed by the board itself, according to the report.

The report recommends using more tools to streamline information to boards to help them act more efficiently and creatively. “Boards cannot have the focused, forward-looking, high-quality debate they need if their board materials are poorly structured, densely packed with unnecessary detail, and lacking in incisive analysis,” the report says.

“Many companies are changing faster than the governance models that oversee them,” says Dr. Roger Barker, chief research and thought leadership officer at the Center for Governance, in the report. “Boards need to become more dynamic in composition, more strategic in the use of board time, and more rigorous in evaluating their own effectiveness. This is not only about compliance. It is about whether boards have the capability, curiosity and challenge needed to support transformation.”