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Webinar: The AI Governance Gap-What 485 Leaders Told Us. And What Your Board Does Next
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The BoardPro AI Governance Pulse surveyed 485 board directors, executives, and governance leaders across Australia and New Zealand, revealing a rapidly widening gap between how quickly AI is being adopted inside organisations and how slowly governance frameworks, policies, and oversight practices are evolving to keep pace. While many leaders acknowledge the transformative potential of AI, the findings highlight growing concerns around risk visibility, board capability, accountability, and the absence of clear governance structures to guide safe and responsible deployment.
Join governance and AI experts Helen van Orton and Alexie O'Brien as they unpack the key findings from the survey, explore what high-performing organisations are doing differently, and provide a practical, step-by-step action plan that boards and leadership teams can begin implementing immediately. If your organisation is struggling to move from AI discussion to effective AI governance and execution, this webinar will help you turn insight into action starting this Monday.
So, hi everybody. Welcome to our webinar today, where we are unveiling the findings of our recent AI Pulse survey, where the looking at where the AI governance gap is. Our webinar team today is Helen Van Orten and Alexei O'Brien. And my name's Sean, Sean McDonald. I shall be your host and moderator in the background for the next 45 odd minutes. Firstly, though, thank you for attending today wherever you are dialing in from. We always appreciate the effort you make to be here for our live webinar events. During the session, if you have any questions, which of course we hope you will do, please try and use the QA button, as against Chad, it just enables us to keep a track of the questions as they're coming through. And finally, if you stay through till the end, which of course we hope you will do, we've got a really short one-minute survey at the end of the webinar that we'd love you to consider. Your feedback really helps us bring relevant content to you week after week, and it enables us to position the wealth of expert presenters that we have for you. So please take a minute to complete the survey as you leave the webinar today. For those not too familiar with Board Pro, we are a board software provider, sometimes called a board portal. We serve just over 35,000 users across the world, about 4,500 boards, and about 8.5 to 9,000 committees. And we're represented in about, well, I think about 34 different countries these days. And we enable organizations to prepare for and run their board meetings more efficiently and effectively with less time and deliver more impact and value for the organization. And as much as we are a board software provider or a board portal, part of our wider mission here at BoardPro is to make the fundamentals of governance free and easy to implement for all organizations, but especially those organizations with resource constraints. And one of the many ways we do this is by providing free access to hundreds of governance templates, guides, and resources, which you will find funnily enough in the resources section of our website. And these webinars that we host every Thursday are also a great way of accessing key governance knowledge without the time, commitment, and costs associated with in-person events. So for the next uh 45 odd minutes, just relax, listen, and add to the discussion by asking as many questions as you would like using the QA uh tool on the toolbar. A full recording of the webinar along with the slide deck and the other resources that we'll talk to you about a little bit later on will be sent to you uh 24 hours after our session today. So let me have our team introduce themselves, starting with or who should we use first? Alexei. Alexei, let's go with you first.
SPEAKER_02Thanks and welcome everybody. I am Alexei O'Brien from LeadershipAcademy.ai, and I'm joined by Helen Van Orten from Directorly. We are sharing the findings from the first board pro AI Governance Pulse. And um, this will share with you how boards and senior leaders are thinking about AI.
SPEAKER_01Um da everyone, I'm Helen Van Orten. Um, I'm an experienced director and chair, sit on a number of boards, um, but also run directly where we work with boards and senior leaders on AI governance, education, and adoption. So we're not going to spend so long talking about ourselves because this is all about the survey data. So, a really, really good response for this first survey, there were 476% of people, sorry, 476 people responded. 85% of those were from Australia and New Zealand. So these results are quite weighted to there. Um, in terms of who responded, two-thirds directors, board chairs, or governance professionals, and the others are a mix of CEOs, execs, company secretaries, et cetera. Um, 44% sitting in the not-for-profit sector, 23% commercial, and then the rest are a balance across education, health, government, etc. Um, and more than half are from organizations with less than 50 people. So some quite small organizations represented in there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And they're quite a governance-engaged audience too, Helen. You know, these people really care about getting governance right. So what was really interesting is that if this group shows gaps, um, the broader market is actually probably likely further behind. And um there were some gaps.
SPEAKER_01There really were. Okay, um, let's start with that headline. Um, 53% of respondents are using every AI every single day, and 79% are using it. So that's you know, eight out of 10 people are using AI every week or more. And that's not dabbling, that's moving into embedded behavior.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they're not just using it for drafting emails. 74% are using it for researching, drafting, and editing. 42%, though, are now using it to really start to challenge their own thinking, get a second opinion. 31% are using it for strategic thinking and scenario planning. And nearly half are seeing it as a thinking partner, not just a productivity tool.
SPEAKER_01So that's really strong, right? The personal adoption story is strong, but there's this massive gap, which is the right-hand side of the slide. Only 4.6% of these organizations have got what we would call full governance. Um, so that's that triad of policies, active board oversight, and regular reporting. And it's almost a third, 29%, have got nothing in place at all. No policy, no training, no oversight.
SPEAKER_02So, what does that mean? And every one of those daily AI decisions or drafting advice, summarizing data, informing strategies actually being done without a governance framework. And if something goes wrong, and with how big the adoption rate is and the exploration that people are doing, something will go wrong at some point. The board won't be able to point to a policy or an approval process or who's actually overseeing it inside of their organizations. And that's not a gap on a maturity model, it's a governance gap, but it's also a personal liability exposure for all of us directors.
SPEAKER_01Oh my God, you're right, Alexei. It's not hypothetical. So AI related DNO claims have actually risen 27%. Um, and average settlements are sitting around a really scary number, which I think is about 56 million. Um, and now there's a number of insurers that are actually writing AI exclusions into their DNO policies. So if your AI causes harm and you don't have that governance framework, your cover may not actually respond. So the question for directors is increasingly becoming not should we govern AI, it's can we demonstrate that we did? Yeah, oh go on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I've had a breakfast um this morning uh with our insurance insurers. And while that exclusion is happening in the States, they anticipate it being here um in Australia and New Zealand in the next six months. So um really needs to be um discussed. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Sean. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02So um we asked you all where is the biggest gap between what your board is says about AI and what's actually happening, and the responses were really candid.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you guys can obviously read faster than um we can speak these out, so we're not gonna run through all of them. But um the one of the uh respondents came back and said the board is AI aware, but not AI enabled. And I think that line just really captures the pattern that we saw again and again through the survey responses. Um, aware is it's sitting in our briefing deck, and we've we've heard someone talk about it. Um, enabled is sitting in that conversation that follows on for it, which we will come to later in the session.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and another comment um is telling, and it was a theme across the entire survey results was uh the board is aware, but not AI enabled. Um, so that single line. Oh, sorry, I've just um just said what you said, Helen. Um management is well ahead of the board. So we've got that um asymmetry. Management really has the volume of the exposure to using AI on a daily basis, but the board has the agenda paper, and that gap is continuing to widen.
SPEAKER_01It really, really is. Um, and then the only probably the other one I'm just gonna touch on on this slide is that third one, Dan. So that one around the lack of insight or the blinked approach. You guys can read it. But there was a much longer comment that was associated with this. So the respondent actually went on to describe AI as being used at both the board and the staff level with no policy, no process, no direction. And that's what we were just talking about. It's that balance and tension between governance going too slow and innovation going too fast. And probably every director who's sitting listening to this, they'd know that right now, in every organization, the adoption is winning over the governance, which is definitely lagging.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and these aren't outliers. So these were patterns repeated across hundreds of responses and themes across multiple questions. So that say do gap is absolutely real, um, and we're aware of it.
SPEAKER_01Um, so where do we go from there? We're using it, not confident with it. Uh, it's where the data starts to get really interesting. So we talked earlier about the fact that 79, so eight out of ten people are using it weekly, um, but only 9.4, so less than one in 10 people actually feel really confident in using it. And almost half of people said that they're still figuring out how to use AI effectively.
SPEAKER_02So people are using tools that they're not fully confident with, and that has implic implications, right? So if people in governance roles aren't confident in their own fluency and um own use of AI, what does it actually mean for the quality of AI-informed decisions that are reaching boards and how we're governing across what our management teams and our organizations are doing with AI?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And it compounds, right? Because like one in five respondents don't actually know what their staff are even using AI for. Um, uh 17% are saying, yeah, it's probably embedded in the tools that we're using, but nobody's actually met to it. You put that, those two numbers together, and that's more than a third, have got really limited visibility into how AI is actually being used in their organization, which is a huge blind spot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and one of our respondents captured that perfectly. They said both the board and staff don't fully know what they don't know, um, and both are unwittingly using AI and exposing the organization to risk.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And um, you know, Alexei and I in our last webinar talked a lot about AI risk. So feel free to go back and listen to that one. Um, but I just sort of final point, probably to wrap out this slide. Um, this isn't just about um confidence because KPMG did an AI in the workplace survey last year, and that showed that 46% of employees, I'm just gonna say that number again, 46% of employees upload sensitive company data into AI tools without approval. So the so what for directors is, because that's what we always ask, um, your people are feeding your data into tools nobody's approved, nobody's monitoring, and your board may not even know exist. So if you can't see it, you can't govern it. And as unfortunately, as a board, if you can't govern it, then you own the consequences. So there's some really scary numbers on that um that slide. So I think Alexa, I'll hand back to you to start the next one.
SPEAKER_02And there's a couple more to come, too. So we asked um how frequently management is providing the board with information on AI. Um, we asked about three topics so workforce impact, emerging emerging regulation, AI performance and risk, too. And the pattern was identical across all three. Roughly 75% of boards get information either on an ad hoc basis or never. And the 37% are um the ones that get absolutely nothing at all of that 75%. So that is a significant amount of um boards that are actually really flying blind.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so even though earlier in the survey we had a number of boards saying, yep, yep, we're governing AI, uh, what they actually probably mean is that they're governing it in a bit of an information vacuum because you can't oversee what you're not actually seeing. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Um, and when we asked which specific AI risks the board has explicitly discussed, not what concerns you, but what have you actually discussed? A quarter of the boards have actually discussed not one of 13 risks that we listed. That's a that's a scary number too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is. And those 13 risks were based on the last couple of webinars that Alexei have webinars that Alexei and I have done around AI risks. So we weren't just, you know, that survey wasn't just randomly pulling risks out of the air. It was real live risks that your board is facing in the AI space. Um, so yeah, and add to that the fact that uh that that top right hand number in green there, the fact that um less than a fifth of boards have actually got that oversight of the detail of how AI is being used in the organization. So even when you've got that awareness, oversight unfortunately seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and um conversations at a board level have been discussed, you know, about 53% are on data privacy, which absolutely makes sense. But um, dropping off down below on the bottom half of that slide, um, less than 20% or 17% have actually discussed directors' liability from AI decisions and less than 10% in and around that DNO insurance gap. Um, agentic AI and prompt injection also less than 10%. So these are risks that actually could hurt directors personally, and they're almost entirely unexamined.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And I I just think it's not from the board post survey, but just like building on that, Grant Thornton did an AI survey, impact survey earlier this year, um, and they found that 78% of execs lack confidence that they could pass an independent AI audit, govern a governance audit. Um, and you know, looking at this from the board side, it's saying exactly the same thing. So, some again, some scary, some scary numbers. We have a few questions, Ting. Yes, fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Do you want to take those now?
SPEAKER_01I think we should probably take them at the end because we'll kind of come through and then we'll close them off because I don't want to uh run out of time because we've got quite a lot to cover, if that's okay, but we will come back to them.
SPEAKER_00No problem.
SPEAKER_02So we designed a survey really around two parallel tracks. Um, this is where they come together. So we've got the readiness side. So 76% of organizations exploring or experimenting with AI, that's probably not a surprise, but 40% um and 36% are doing it without any clear strategic direction at all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then that counter that we've talked about on the other side, which is the governance piece, 72% still in early stage, 18% no policy, no discussion, 27% are aware of the need, but we haven't acted on it. 27% again developing policies. So there's just such a small number of boards. It's like less than one in three have actually reached the point of having policies or more mature structures in place. So um, yeah, it's kind of scary. I think I'll pass that to you, Alexei, actually.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that that's the cliff, right, on this slide. So AI usage is uh already operational in most organizations, but governance is really just still aspirational. Um, and the gap between the two columns is the story on this slide and what we've seen throughout the survey.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And again, recent research, MIT Sloan this time, um, on 300 um companies. This is the exciting piece. So the companies that have got board-level AI governance frameworks get 55% higher return on investment on their sorry, ROI on their AI investments than those without. So I know we often look at governance and go, particularly in this very, very fast-moving space, is it a break in innovation? Actually, it's not. It what it's what gives the leader the confidence to invest decisively. Actually, the organizations that are pulling ahead, it's not about how much AI you've got in the organization. It's about having the right governance frameworks in place to be actually able to scale it properly.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And the gap isn't static, it's widening every single week because as new tools are adopted and they're released, you know, you've got employees checking in and, you know, trying them out, new data is shared, new decisions are being made, none of it without being governed. And so those regulators, like Helen said, they're no longer asking, you know, have you got an AI policy? How are we governing our AI? And if our readiness and our exploration is ahead of our governance, we don't just have a risk. We've got an exposure that actually grows with every AI decision our organization is relying on without oversight. And I really believe, like I think that our audit requirements in the future, as we continue to get more and more agentic AI, will continue to grow, which means this oversight is needed going to need to be harnessed so we can be audited for for agentic AI.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100% agree. And and those of you who are unfamiliar with the some of the phrases that we're using, for example, agentic AI, um, that um unseen and unchecked risk webinar that we talked um we talked more specifically around that worth going back and watching, which is on the BoardPro site. Um, so just moving on to this, where is it that organizations are actually going wrong? Why have they fallen into this cliff between those two different issues? So the data points um show three deployment mistakes that again we see um again and again. So the first one is that there is no owner. So again, only one in five companies have got a named person who's actually accountable for AI governance. And if you haven't got an owner, governance suddenly is everybody's problem, but at the same time it's nobody's problem. Um and it sits in the, yeah, we definitely need to do something about that pile. Um and we all know as boards that we have a lot of those in the organization. But the problem is with the practical consequence of that is who's writing the AI policy, who's looking at the shadow AI reports, who's reporting that through to the board. And unfortunately, right now, the answer is in 81% of organizations, it's nobody. So um the fix on the cart is the right one, which is name someone this week. It doesn't need to be an AI expert, it just needs to be someone who is responsible for this in your organization.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Uh number two, shadow AI. And again, um, as Helen mentioned before, if you're not familiar with some of these terms, we have discussed them in our risk um webinar. Um, it is the default. Uh, 41% say that AI is um used informally by individuals that hasn't been sanctioned and it's not systematic. I actually really believe that that number is probably on the conservative side, which actually to me indicates that it's a potential blind spot for boards. Um so one of our uh respondents wrote, you know, the taking up of code and copilots and agents is slower than reported to the board with a higher use of unauthorized large language models for routine tasks. So the board is being told one thing, but the reality is completely different. Um, so the risks are real. Uh the fix for this is to really run practical AI usage audits before your next board meeting, and you'll find potentially there is more AI in use um than your board papers uh might suggest.
SPEAKER_01100%. 100% every organization I talk to, it's sort of like, oh yeah, we didn't really realise that. And the other thing that people say is, oh, but we haven't got it installed on our systems. Well, yeah, people can still use it on their personal devices if they've got access to it, which most people have. Um, vendors are bringing it in too. Oh, totally, yeah. We won't even go into the whole vendor piece today. Um, so um the third piece, so AI disconnected from strategy. And I so often see this when I'm talking to people. So um people go, oh yeah, well, we can do um admin automation and that's really good, or we can reduce our front line or whatever. Only 31% of um people are looking at AI for strategic thinking, which is um, you know, the admin side's valuable, but if that's the ceiling of your ambition, you are definitely leaving it on the table. Um so you need to put AI on the board agenda as a strategic item. And please don't have this coming from your technology team. AI is not a technology strategy. Your organization strategy is your strategy and it's where can AI help me with this, not what's our technology strategy about AI. Don't get me wrong, the tech team need to figure out what tools you're gonna be using, but your actual AI strategy uh needs to uh sit with you as a board. It needs to change your ability to execute on whatever your mission is. Um, because if you're parking it in IT, um it's not gonna go anywhere.
SPEAKER_02No, and at the new KPMG NCAD principles, the first one is that the board's responsibility, AI is a fiduciary responsibility, and um it is all around the strategic um oversight of long term value creation. So um that's an interesting and great principles that they've just published as well. So we're gonna Shift gears a little. We've spoken about all of the things that can go wrong: the blind spots, the missing owners, the shadow AI, the strategic disconnect, but that's only half the conversation because the CEOs and directors have also told us what they actually believe AI could unlock for their organization. So we asked them, what is the biggest opportunity? There's five quotes on the screen, but we're just going to touch on a couple for a few different angles.
SPEAKER_01Yep, sure. So the first one I just wanted to touch on is this it's around the scale and the strategic shift. So we touched on it a little bit in the last slide around that productivity gain. So productivity gains allow humans to use their time to be more strategic and focus on game-changing actions. So if you're particularly if you're in a not-for-profit or a smaller organization, that really can change the equation. So you don't need to hire your way to greater capacity if you can get AI handling some of that routine work. And that frees your people up to do the work that's actually moving the dial. So it's so powerful.
SPEAKER_02Especially for you know impact organizations and then as well. The second one are the board level value. So stress testing scenarios, supporting uh improved research, really challenging exact assumptions and biases. Um, and that's not a productivity play, that's actually leveraging AI as a governance tool. So helping boards ask better questions and testing management's thinking. And that's exactly the kind of challenge function that a board should be performing. That's strategic oversight for long-term value creation. So your mission doesn't change because of AI. Um, AI changes your ability to actually execute on it, but only if governments is there to enable it rather than blocking it.
SPEAKER_01Love that. Um so jumping on to the next one, we don't want to leave you hanging because we've shown you the gaps, we've shown you the mistakes, we've talked about the opportunity. Um, but what does success actually look like? Um so both Alexei and I work with boards across Australia and New Zealand. Um, the ones who are doing this really well share these three building blocks that are on screen, um which we'll just quickly run through, Alexei.
SPEAKER_02So the first one is informed oversight. So it doesn't mean the board has to become the technologists. Um it just means that directors have got to be fluent enough in the understanding of AI to be able to interrogate management's assurances and the information that they are receiving, um, not just um receiving and taking them on board for face value. So can you ask your CEO which agents are operating in our business? Um, what can they access? What can they do without human approvals? And if you can't ask that question with a level of confidence, that's the fluency gap that boards actually need to close.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, I'm coming back to one of my favorite topics that you picked up from earlier, uh, which is strategic enablement. So it's again that point, but it just needs to be landed again. Um, boards that get value from AI do not treat it as a technology project or a risk that needs to be managed. I'm not saying those aren't important, but AI needs to be treated as that strategic capability. It's sitting on the strategy agenda, not just sitting hidden in your risk um register. Um and, you know, that the board asking how can AI help us deliver on our mission in parallel with what could go wrong, um, and seeing that starting to see that shift from AI rather than it being a threat to a tool where it's really unlocking huge value for the organization. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And ethical leadership. So really clear boundaries on data, um, named accountability for AI governance and a culture where staff actually feels safe to raise concerns about AI rather than um hiding their use of it as well. That's really some of the antidote to shadow AI. Um, you won't fix um shadow AI just with a policy, but you fix it with a culture where people don't feel the need to hide. And in the KPMG principles, there and I think it's their third principle, it's all around workforce transformation and human accountability and having and keeping that human in the loop, especially when we are relying on AI to support decisions that we're making for the organization.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, and that bottom line on the slide is that is the number that we referenced before, right? Around um the fact that the organizations who've got those governance frameworks in place do get their higher um ROI. So um it's not about slowing it down, it's helping you move forward with confidence. Okay, so that's a huge amount of data uh onto you guys. So again, trying to just break it down into some really practical steps. So, you know, what could you do next Monday rather than going, oh my gosh, what uh it's uh starting from next week. Um the three building from uh blocks from the last slide, so your oversight, enablement, and ethical leadership, that's where you're heading. But that's just not gonna like let's be real, that's not gonna happen in a single board meeting. Um, and we've heard from quite a lot of organizations that the reason that they don't start is because they think they need this huge AI strategy before you can act, and you really don't. You actually the first thing you need is that visibility. So seeing what's happening, uh, where is it owned? What are the boundaries? What's the reporting? And you can put all of those things in place in the next 30 days.
SPEAKER_02So we've uh broken that down week by week for you, um, so you can get started quite effectively. So, week one, what's happening? Asking three questions. What tools are uh staff actually using in the AI space? What data is going into them? Um, who approved them? And if the answer is we don't know, um, that's your starting point. So the outcome we're after is that we actually know what AI tools are in use by whom, what data they're touching, how accurate the data is that they're relying on, so that we don't have surprises.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And that's immediately overcoming that shadow AI problem that we talked about earlier. So week two, um, and this is one again that's really critical name the owner. So who is that person who is accountable for AI governance? Again, it doesn't need to be that AI expert. It's someone who understands governance and can coordinate that response. Um, again, if you remember back to those earlier slides, only 19%, so less than one in five organizations have adjust have done this. And just naming that one person is gonna put you ahead of 80% of the market. So that will make you feel really good on Monday morning when you do that. Um, but without a named person, all of those other tasks are going to drift. So putting that person in place is going to create the accountability that makes everything else stick. That person can come through, report to the board, not on an ad hoc basis, not just when something goes wrong, but as a standing agenda item. So you are getting the visibility. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Um, and our third week, start to set the boundaries. So that minimal uh viable AI policy should have simple components to it. So three elements um what data must never be used and entered into AI tools, um, what tools are actually approved for use in an organization, and the consequences of tools outside of that being used, and what requires a human to review before being acted on any AI output. And that last one is critical because right now, less than 7% of our organizations are actually auditing AI output. So that's like blind, um, blind faith on something that we know can confidently lie. Um, and crucially, we've got to make sure that our staff know um what is in the AI policy. A policy in a drawer doesn't count.
SPEAKER_01Really powerful, like that analogy. Um, okay, uh final one week four is is actually this is your first AI governance report talking to the board. So again, it doesn't need to be comprehensive. It literally is we've just started, here's what we found. So the whole point of this is to actually start creating some visibility, creating a rhythm. And then once your board can see what's happening, you can start to get that um governance in place. Um, up until then, it's probably a bit more like guesswork. So just some easy things on there.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And it's not about perfection, it's really about being intentional, starting to have the conversations, especially those risks that we um found before that aren't getting talked about at all. Um and that's the difference between organizations that are governing for AI and those that are just talking about it. So if you do take one thing away from today, take these six questions and put them on your next board agenda and have the discussion around them.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Uh I we're just gonna fill these in with a bit of stats. So the first one, um we talked about it on the previous slide. Do you know which tools are being used and by who? And that's across your organization, right? And remember that 21% of the respondents told us that they have got no idea.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah, and number two, what data is going into those tools? Um, do we have clear rules around what we must not do? Um, only 37% remember have clear data rules in place. And remember, it's also it's not just the AI um tool that we're governing, it's also our data privacy regulations that really there's some changes coming at us in December of this year, too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, question three, we've talked about who's accountable, are they reporting to the board regularly? You know, just make sure that's an easy one to solve. Um, and risks.
SPEAKER_02Have we explicitly discussed the risks? Um, which one haven't we? We've got a list of 13 through the survey data privacy, shadow AI, uh director's liability, vendor risk, um, permission drift. If you haven't discussed them, now is the time. 100%.
SPEAKER_01Uh then next, again, it's always me on this topic. Uh, it's the are we treating it as a technology issue or strategic governance issue? Because the answer to that question is literally going to shape everything. Uh, so make the right call, put it on your strategic agenda. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Um, and question six, which we um added after we um saw the data today, have we discussed our exposure as directors, including personal liability and DNO coverage in the context of AI? Only 17% have discussed um liability, 8% have discussed insurance. So if your DNO policy has an AI exclusion clause, um it may not yet. Um, but please, you know, make sure that you're keeping across it. If you haven't read it, um, that's part of your homework.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And and equally, when you're coming up for your renewal of your policy, um, whether you get direct with an insurer or with a broker, it's a really important conversation to be having with them. Um, again, all the boards that I sit on, that's been part of our uh broker conversations for our renewals recently. Um, so if you can't answer those six uh six questions, don't be surprised. Uh again, based on the survey results, most people wouldn't be able to. It's not a criticism, but that's what you should be putting on your agenda for your next board meeting.
SPEAKER_00Sean, that's okay. Would you like to talk about the white paper that you both authored recently? This is this will be this will be included as a downloadable resource for everybody that's attended the uh the call today. So would you like to just give a quick overview of what that was about, Alan?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So Sean's just sneaked this slide in. So um very off the cuff. Um so Alexei and I probably about two months ago finished writing this paper, very much looking at as a board, what do we need to be AI enabled? So that's looking at the governance frameworks, what the tools we can be using are, how we can make sure that we are thinking about AI really um strategically and well. Some of the things that we've discussed today in here, but um yeah, it's a really wide-ranging report. I think it's really interesting. Um, and it's everything from how you're looking at your vendors, how you're looking at your organization, how you're strategically approaching it. Missed anything, Alexei? No, I think that's that's very good.
SPEAKER_02There's also a uh too long, don't read some. Oh yeah, there is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, questions. Over to you, ladies.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I'm just gonna move on. Very good. Um, I've got a question from uh I think the first question there is for you. Um, Sean, do you want to touch on that board pro AI and yeah?
SPEAKER_00The question is what does Board Pro have in mind for making its offerings AI enabled? We have a lot in the pipeline. And on June 16th, mark the date in your calendars. We have a very special announcement and a special webinar where we'll be talking about our complete new AI suite of capabilities. So June 16th, mark it in your diary.
SPEAKER_02So the question from Trish, can you please give us examples of where things have gone wrong with AI use in not-for-profit organizations? I don't have any specific examples top of mind, um, but I think it is just being aware of the risks of things that can go wrong. And even when you're applying, you know, some of the things that have gone wrong at a commercial um level. So for example, the Deloitte um hallucination example, those kind of things can happen inside an NFP organization. Um, when you're looking at any of the risks, you know, data risks and data privacy, if we're putting donor information um into a large language model, um, that could expose us as an organization to the data privacy issues.
SPEAKER_00And question from Chris Where does one go for AI education? Is this appears to be where the big gap is?
SPEAKER_01Uh it's a huge gap. Very good. Huge gap. Um, I'd say a couple of things. Um, so both Alexei and I deliver um training for boards specifically on this. So either as a one-off or as a series of training sessions into your board with Board Pro. Um, there is also an AI masterclass um that I recorded for them last year, which is downloadable on demand. And I'm sure Sean will say that he's going to do some discount for anyone who's um on this course. He'll send that out with the email afterwards. Thanks, Sean. Um, but uh also later this year, Alexei and I are launching uh it will be an online, a really comprehensive um training session around a training program around AI. So watch this space. And governance, AI and governance. Sorry, yes, specifically. Um and DNO stands for directors and officers. So it's the liability insurance. So if something goes wrong in your organization that you're covered personally.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, AI audits, uh, a couple of couple of different things. So there's anonymous surveys of staff, you are relying on them to tell you the truth. Um, but also, you know, potentially pulling any bully billing data from finance to audit any uh AI SaaS subscriptions, um, getting IT to scan network logs uh for unknown AI domains as well. There are tools out there like CloudEagle that can actually special specialise as well in shadow AI visibility as well. What is involved? How I think that we've got that one as well. How is an I a tool audit done? Um December privacy regulation update. So that December privacy, it's already legislated. So the date changed in Australia. Um thank you, Helen. Um the date um in December is any decision that uh we are relying on AI to um support with, where it includes like employee data. Um, there are um really serious consequences where we're not disclosing that. So we need to make sure that we are understanding those changes, that we're understanding where we're relying on AI for our um decision making as it relates to our people and our customers and any privacy information, and making sure that um our privacy policies are updated in how we are using data with our AI.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. Do you want us to keep cracking, Sean, or are you running out of time? No, we have time. Carry on. Okay, cool, cool. Um, so can the resources from the WIST webinar, there's actually two webinars, Sean. So if you can maybe attach both of those um to the resources provided, that would be very cool. Well done. What types of organizational data should not be AI accessed? That's a really great question. And one of the things that I teach when I'm doing any AI training is um it's almost like a red, amber, green system. So um, if it's publicly available information um and it's you know, it's open, great, load it up. If it's customer data, if it's your next strategy, it's your new competitive edge, don't go there. And always think about whenever you're putting something into AI, about how you can anonymize it and make sure that it is generic. Um so like never put your, no, let me rephrase that. If you are in a portal that is designed for it, you can put your board papers into it, but don't take a screenshot of your um board papers and then just load them into your free chat GPT model uh because you're then just putting all of your information out to everyone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Um what if staff and volunteers don't want to use AI? Um, should this be discussed? Um, I definitely think it should be discussed. Um, you know, that's part of you know, creating a safe environment for people to experiment and learn. Um, they might find, you know, different use cases, um, just helping guide people on you know practical use cases, how to use it, and that it's not as scary as um it they might think it think it is, um, creating a safe environment for us to be leading by example, showcasing use cases that are relevant to staff and to volunteers, um, and particularly where they there are organizational um use cases that are relevant to the to them.
SPEAKER_00So from Carla.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, good question. Um, I think it depends what type of model you've got. Um, if you're in a paid protected model, I think it would be okay. But if you're using a free model, I definitely wouldn't be putting a whole load of information into there. Um, the other thing you can always do is you can get AI to create most of it, and then you can drop it into PowerPoint and add the names afterwards. So you can get it to do the heavy lifting uh to create the poster that looks beautiful, and then you can just um pop the names in afterwards. Again, uh what we didn't talk about is always refer back to your own organization's AI policy if you've got one.
SPEAKER_02I think the other thing is um, you know, permissions, you know, are they aware of that? And do they give their permission to um have their names and especially if you've got a likeness or images um going up in there related to that um name too.
SPEAKER_00Question from Diana. What traps should directors?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I like that. Uh don't be mean, I think, is probably the main one. You know, don't use your AI to um to come up with the things. But equally, um two real serious elements on that. One is as a director, don't be putting your board papers, as I said earlier, into a public model that's not got the privacy uh pieces in space in place. Um but equally, you know, the whole point, in fact, the the course I was doing this morning, which was on cognitive orchestration, which is actually deliberately using AI to stress test your thinking and look at things from other perspectives. And, you know, I had chair listed companies and CEOs on that program, and that's exactly what I'm teaching them to do is how to use AI to think of the different questions because it's much better to stress test it now and do a pre-mortem than it is to find out that it's failed six months down the line when you've invested a whole load of money in it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think the other trap as well is the same as any um board level, you know, not trying to get too into uh management's territory. You know, how do we stay in that governance line as we are asking questions that should be oversight rather than um in the weeds?
SPEAKER_01Oh, and I've just seen you've done a follow-up. I was thinking of avoiding cognitive biases. Um, I think you should use AI to help you get over cognitive biases. I think that's a really strong, strong use case for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um Rydy, let's wrap it up, team. Oh, good. Very good. We're at time. So please feel free to connect with our presenters on LinkedIn, everybody. If you'd like to be put in touch with Helen or Alexei, I highly recommend you get in touch with them if you're looking at AI adoption with uh throughout your organization. Please indicate your interest on the uh survey at the end of the webinar as you exit. We also have some fantastic webinars coming your way over the next two to three weeks. So uh keep your eyes open uh and check out our webinar schedule on our website. Uh so you'll receive an email from me. It'll be tomorrow now, which is Friday, our time, which will include a recording of the uh webinar today, the transcript, the all-important slides, the white paper, and of course the pulse survey report, which has just been released this morning. So you'll receive a copy of that. Uh, all of this will be hosted on the webinar library of our website within the next 48 hours if you miss the email. Um if you're considering board management software for your organization, then obviously we'd love to hear from you. But better still, why not try our free 30-day free trial? It's really simple and straightforward. No credit cards required uh in order to get started. So uh, really straightforward there. So thanks again for your attendance, everybody. I hope you enjoyed the session. Thanks, uh Helen and Alexei, for both being the author of the uh the survey itself before we put everything together and the final report as well. It was uh great work, thank you. Um, look forward to seeing you all at our next webinar, everybody. Don't forget the short one minute survey as you leave. It really helps us craft this great program for you. So have a great day, everybody.