Work introducing artificial intelligence into businesses needs to be integrated into boardroom discussions in the same way as climate and ESG issues, according to an expert panel discussing the current array of disruptive forces affecting companies.

Brought together by Board Agenda and Forvis Mazars, the panel explored C-suite priorities against a backdrop of key challenges facing boards.

Patricia Rodrigues Jenner, a veteran non-executive currently on the board of Legal & General Assurance Society, said companies would need to experiment with artificial intelligence and it should be led by the C-suite, and the board, and not “siloed” in IT departments.

“This is business strategy and this needs to be integrated very much like the success of a lot of businesses that integrated climate and ESG in their businesses.”

AI is just one of many major trends affecting boardrooms simultaneously, including geopolitical conflict, economic volatility and climate change.

US unpredictability

The geopolitical landscape is a particular concern as the US pursues trade wars and unpredictable tariffs on US imports.

Asam Malik, a Forvis Mazars UK executive board member and risk expert, had a warning for boards that the geopolitical landscape should be a standing agenda item inside meetings and not a “one-off” chat.

But, he added, risk conversations had to be substantive. “A lot of boards do a lot of work defining what their risks are around geopolitics.

“The challenge is that what they’re not doing is setting strategies around it. That tends to be the gap. They define the problem, but they’re not defining the solution.”

Catherine May, a non-executive at Shoreham Port and South Staffs Water, said good stakeholder relations were an important part of dealing with the current environment. That responsibility fell on the shoulders of the C-suite but should also be the remit of the wider board.

“It’s also a responsibility for some of us in the boardroom and it’s certainly a thing that chairs should be doing—getting into the stakeholder management programme, building better relationships of two-way understanding with politicians, with regulators and with the other influencing bodies that work to influence the policy agendas where our businesses are operating.”

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