Artificial intelligence (AI) has entered the boardroom through strategic presentations, risk and regulatory reviews, technology updates, investment requests, mergers and acquisitions, workforce planning, and questions about competitors’ activities. For some boards, AI now appears on every meeting agenda. Others have established dedicated AI committees, expanded the mandates of existing committees, recruited directors with technology expertise, or asked management to return with clearer plans for addressing AI-related issues. Nevertheless, most directors we interviewed described their boards as being at an early stage of AI governance maturity. This exploratory qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews with twenty corporate directors to examine how boards are progressing from general AI awareness to structured oversight. The interviews suggest that the principal board-level challenge is institutionalization, which requires clearly defined decision rights, enterprise-wide visibility, governance of AI investment portfolios, secure tools, director training, and measures of business value and risk outcomes.
AI Use Disclosure: AI tools supported interview transcription, preliminary organization and analysis of transcripts, and the preparation of summaries and notes. All AI-assisted outputs were reviewed against the underlying interview materials. The authors independently assessed and validated the findings and retained sole responsibility for the study design, interpretation of the evidence, arguments, governance implications, recommendations, and conclusions. AI-assisted tools were also used for manuscript organization and language refinement. No AI system is listed as an author. The authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript and accept full responsibility for its accuracy, integrity, and content.