AI and the Future of Governance Work

Executive Summary

AI is reshaping knowledge work — including the work of governance professionals themselves. This article looks at what AI will and will not do for company secretaries, directors and governance teams in the next three years, and what they should be learning now.

Context

Boards have begun to use AI tools for meeting summarization, minute drafting, action tracking, board-pack search and policy comparison. These are real productivity gains, but they also introduce confidentiality, accuracy and record-keeping questions that the governance function uniquely owns.

Key Issues

• AI-generated minutes still require human verification; the legal record cannot be a hallucination.
• Board materials are highly confidential; the AI tool used must not train on or retain that content.
• Audit trails of who used which AI tool on which document become a governance artifact in their own right.

Strategic Implications

Governance professionals who adopt AI thoughtfully will become more effective, not less essential. Governance professionals who avoid it will find themselves disadvantaged in pace, depth and analytical reach.

Governance Considerations

• Establish an internal policy on permissible AI use within the governance function.
• Select AI tools whose data handling, retention and tenancy meet board-confidentiality expectations.
• Maintain human authorship of the final legal record.

Practical Recommendations

• Invest in a structured AI fluency program for the company secretary's office.
• Pilot one or two well-scoped AI use cases (board-pack search, action tracking) before expanding.
• Bring lessons learned back into the board's broader AI governance agenda.

Conclusion

AI changes the texture of governance work but not its purpose. The governance professionals who master it will set the standard for how the rest of the organization adopts AI responsibly.