How to run a board away day on AI

A board away day on AI earns its time when the board spends most of the day deciding and the least of it being presented to. The measure of the day is what is written down at the end, and who owns each line.

Before the day: reading, a survey and one question#

Most of the value is set up beforehand. Agree the purpose with the chair and the company secretary, then read whatever management has already produced on AI: the policy, the inventory of tools if one exists, the last risk report. Gaps in those papers usually tell you where the day should spend its time.

Send a short anonymous survey to the executive team, one layer below the board. Ask what they can no longer do unaided, who would notice if a system were wrong, how often anyone has overridden one, and what they could still do if it stopped. A board that starts from its own people's answers argues about the business in front of it rather than about AI in general.

Then set one question in the invitation, so that directors arrive having thought about it. A good one names a decision the board owns, such as which decisions in this company a machine should never make.

A running order for half a day#

1. The argument, twenty minutes. One short case, no product tour: AI reaches judgement before it reaches jobs, and an organisation either designs where human judgement stays or drifts into handing it over.
2. The decision list, an hour. Which decisions do the company's systems already make or shape, and who approved each one? Most boards find decisions on the list that nobody remembers approving.
3. A break. Longer than feels necessary. The useful corridor conversation happens here.
4. The stop list, forty-five minutes. For each system that matters, who can stop it, how long a stop takes, and when it was last rehearsed.
5. The incident definition, thirty minutes. What counts as an AI incident here, written before there is one, and who is told within what time.
6. What the board sees, thirty minutes. What management puts in front of the board each meeting from now on, so the other three lists survive past the day.
7. Owners and dates, fifteen minutes. A name and a date against every line, read back to the room before anyone leaves.

A full day adds two sessions in the afternoon. One reads the survey results in full. The other turns from risk to capability: what the organisation must remain able to do on its own, the record this site calls custody.

The four things the board leaves with#

• The list of decisions machines may make in the company's name, and who approved each.
• The list of who can stop each system, how long a stop takes, and when it was last tested.
• A definition of an AI incident, agreed before one happens. The thresholds are set out on what counts as a serious AI incident.
• What management reports each meeting. A worked version is on what management should report to the board on AI.

Short enough to fit on two pages. A record that runs to twenty gets filed and forgotten.

Where away days on AI go wrong#

Too much presentation. A board that listens for four hours leaves informed and undecided. Keep the talking from the front to the first twenty minutes and the read-backs.

A vendor in the room. A demonstration of a product the company might buy turns a governance day into a sales meeting, and directors stop saying what they think.

The introductory talk, again. Most boards have heard what a large language model is. Spending the morning on it pushes the decisions into the last hour, when people are tired.

No owner for the output. If nobody is named against each list, the day produces a pleasant memory and nothing the board can hold management to.

Who should chair it#

The chair of the board can run the day, and some do it well. The difficulty is that the chair also has a view, and the room knows it. An outside chair with no stake in the answer, who sells no software and builds nothing, makes it easier for directors to say the uncomfortable thing. Either way, the person in the chair should be chairing rather than presenting for most of the day.