The Future of the Boardroom: 5 AI Takeaways Every Board Member Should Know

(Sponsored by Nasdaq)

AI is no longer just a technology issue. It’s a human matter and a governance matter—and is fast becoming a boardroom imperative. During Nasdaq’s 2025 Future of the Boardroom Forum, leaders from Nasdaq, Microsoft, and top boards gathered to explore how AI is transforming governance, strategy, and decision-making processes. They shared insights and recommended practices for navigating this wave of technological advancement.

The following are five key takeaways from the forum that board members should know to help their companies effectively adopt AI:

1. AI Governance Must Be Proactive, Not Reactive

AI is evolving too fast to take a “wait and see” approach. Consider how quickly AI has gone from obscure to mainstream. It was only three years ago that OpenAI—the parent company that developed ChatGPT—released its generative AI chatbot to the public. Today, it is pervasive across personal and professional aspects of day-to-day life.

As companies continue to adopt AI, it is important to be mindful of associated risks—and to prepare for them. Board members should shift their perspectives regarding AI from fear and uncertainty to an informed, confident mindset. Proactively seeking education and asking the right questions can help.

Lou Modano, Chief Information Security Officer at Nasdaq, shared that asking the right questions is one way board members can start to fulfill their cybersecurity and AI oversight responsibilities. Mondano said, “Questions are really important, especially from the standpoint of a board asking the CISO or the CIO. You can use those questions to basically frame the expectations of the board. And you can also use those questions to help increase the transparency of the dialogue.” With an accurate understanding and proper context of risks, boards can then begin to manage them effectively. To help mitigate any risks from AI, governance must be embedded from the start of a company’s overall AI strategy—not bolted on after deployment. That means:

• Establishing responsible AI usage policies early.
• Continuously monitoring for model drift, bias, and compliance risks.
• Embedding transparency, accountability, and explainability into AI systems.

2. Board Literacy in AI Is Now Essential

Gone are the days when AI was a niche topic. Today, it’s a core strategic issue across business functions and levels. Steven Wolf Pereira, CEO of Alpha, commented, “This [AI] is not growing or expanding in a linear fashion, this is exponential. Given the rate of change, how can you govern something that you don’t understand?”

While companies and their boards are not necessarily expected to become AI experts overnight, education and understanding of it are important to provide effective oversight and develop forward-thinking AI strategies. Virginia Gambale, Board Chair at Nutanix, also shared a helpful anecdote that she tells board members when it comes to learning about AI, “It’s like taking a vitamin – it’s daily dose. Get on it and take it and start living it.” Board members can get started by:

• Developing fluency in AI to ask the right questions.
• Engaging in hands-on experimentation with AI tools.
• Consider adding directors with deep tech or AI expertise.

3. AI Oversight Should Mirror Cybersecurity—But with Upside

Like cybersecurity, AI requires board-level oversight. But unlike cybersecurity—an investment companies make to prepare for and defend against negative events or threat actors—AI has the potential to introduce innovations, efficiencies, and cost savings.

Brad Peterson, Chief Technology and Information Officer at Nasdaq, explained that while there are similarities, like intense risks, there are also differences between these two board objectives. He shared, “It [AI] has an opportunity to accelerate our velocity – it has a chance to build new products. Not everyone had a chance to build new products in cyber. I think everyone has a chance to enhance their products with AI.” Consider looking at AI more positively and including it as a topic in the boardroom. To maximize AI’s potential as a growth engine, a few topics boards should discuss during meetings include:

• Adding AI as a standing item on board meeting agendas.
• Analyzing AI objectively by considering its potential risks and benefits.
• Providing oversight of how AI is currently being integrated in any products and how it is being used by employees across the business.

4. AI Can Improve Board Decision-Making Velocity and Quality

AI isn’t just about automation—it’s also about acceleration. For boards, this means being able to make forward-thinking decisions faster, which will become paramount as the velocity of decision-making continues to increase.

During her opening remarks at the Forum, Gabriella Halasz-Clarke, Head of Governance and Sustainability Solutions at Nasdaq, noted, “AI is no longer a distant concept, it’s a present force. It’s influencing how we evaluate risk, how we make decisions, and how we uphold accountability. It’s challenging our assumptions about judgment and trust. And when it’s applied with care and clarity, it’s enhancing boardrooms around the world.” A few ways board members can begin to realize the benefits of using AI include:

• Surfacing real-time insights from enterprise data.
• Reducing reliance on anecdotal or “loudest voice in the room” dynamics.
• Delivering faster, informed responses to market shifts.

5. AI Board Members May Be Closer Than We Think

AI agents, or agentic AI, are widely thought to be the next form of AI to transform the way we work and live. Agents will be different than generative AI, which can only ingest prompts and generate outputs. They will be characterized by four key traits: memory, planning, independent action, and inter-agent interaction. During the Forum, leaders predicted that AI agents could act as additional board members and even start joining private company board meetings within the next one to two years. Specifically, AI agents could:

• Augment human decision-making with speed, memory, and analytical depth.
• Serve as advisors, scenario planners, or even voting members in limited contexts.
• Raise new questions about explainability, liability, and governance.

Bringing It All Together: Nasdaq Boardvantage and the Intelligent Boardroom

Insights from the 2025 Future of the Boardroom Forum are already being put into practice with Nasdaq’s board management software, Nasdaq Boardvantage®. Purpose-built for board members and governance professionals, with AI functionality developed in partnership with Microsoft, Nasdaq Boardvantage helps:

• Automate meeting minutes and board book summaries, saving up to an estimated 25% of the board’s time.
• Deliver real-time insights that help board members cut through complexity and focus on strategy.
• Operate in a closed environment, ensuring sensitive board data is never exposed to public AI models.
• Provide accurate outputs shaped by feedback from hundreds of boards, exceeding industry averages by delivering 91-97% accuracy.

As board responsibilities become more complex, Nasdaq Boardvantage empowers board members to lead with clarity, speed, and confidence. The future of corporate governance isn’t just efficient, it’s intelligent.

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To learn more about the Nasdaq Boardvantage AI for boards, visit their website or request a demo with their team.