CHRIS B. KENNEDY

Board AI Toolkit

A 5-page executive brief to take into your next board meeting: why AI oversight has to move faster, the ten questions to ask, who else asks them, and what to do next. Free to download and share.

Executive brief · choose your edition

First page of the Board AI Executive Brief, enterprise and regulated edition

Enterprise and regulated

For boards of large enterprises, public companies and regulated industries

PDF · 5 pages · 1.3 MB · Version 1.1 · October 28, 2026

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  1. 1 Is Your Board Keeping Up With AI? The case for action: pace, gaps in published guidance, top risks
  2. 2 Ten AI Questions for the Board Benchmarked against published guidance from 34 organizations
  3. 3 AI Moves Faster Than Your Board Meets Organizational agility and board cadence
  4. 4 What's Next Before your next meeting, and ways to work together
  5. 5 Appendix: Who Asks Each of the Ten AI Questions 34 outside organizations mapped to the ten questions
First page of the Board AI Executive Brief, private company edition

Private company

For boards and owners of small and mid-sized private companies

PDF · 5 pages · 1.3 MB · Version 1.1 · October 28, 2026

Download brief ↓ View in browser
  1. 1 Is Your Board Keeping Up With AI? The case for action: pace, gaps in published guidance, top risks
  2. 2 Ten AI Questions for Private Company Boards The questions, plus the first 90 days
  3. 3 AI Moves Faster Than Your Board Meets Organizational agility and board cadence
  4. 4 What's Next Before your next meeting, and ways to work together
  5. 5 Appendix: Who Asks Each of the Ten AI Questions 30 outside organizations mapped to the ten questions

Linked pages also download on their own, for a director who wants just the questions.

Built by Chris B. Kennedy: Certificate in Private Company Governance, Private Directors Association (verify), and member, PDA National AI Governance Special Interest Group. Views are my own; this is not a PDA publication.

The full Board AI Toolkit

The brief tells a board what to ask. The full toolkit is how it answers, and keeps answering as AI moves.

Start with a Board AI Readiness Review Where every engagement starts: we go through your answers to the ten questions together, see where the board stands, and agree which gaps matter most.

Then choose where to go:

Assess

Independent review and scorecard

  • Independent review of management's answers to the ten questions
  • Scorecard across 14 governance domains
  • Interviews with directors and executives
  • Blind spots and priorities, in one page for the board
  • Competitor and vendor assessment
  • Talent assessment: AI skills across leadership and key teams
  • Sample guidance: evidence requests, evaluations, policies and scoring

Design

Operating model, reporting and decision rights

  • Interviews with directors and executives
  • AI operating model and decision rights
  • Board reporting: dashboard or one-page update
  • Committee roles, charters and policies
  • Sample guidance: evidence requests, evaluations, policies and scoring
  • Management response plan and AI incident response
  • Board and leadership training and workshops
  • Support hiring for AI roles

Advise

Ongoing board-level AI perspective

  • Scorecard across 14 governance domains
  • Blind spots and priorities, in one page for the board
  • Board and leadership training and workshops
  • Support hiring for AI roles
  • AI adviser to the board or owners, on call
  • Monitoring: briefings between meetings on what changed

Enterprise and regulated: the 8-page packet adds

  • Board AI ChecklistFifteen items to confirm before the board can say AI is governed
  • Any Standard Framework, Plus What AI ChangesNIST, the FSB's twelve sound practices, and three AI add-ons

Private company: the 8-page packet adds

  • Board AI Checklist for Private CompaniesTwenty-five items, with the essentials for the first 90 days marked
  • Any Standard Framework, Plus What AI ChangesA proportionate framework mapped to NIST, and three AI add-ons
  • Same Questions, Different ScaleHow private-company oversight differs from a bank or large enterprise

What it is built on

The questions were benchmarked against the published board guidance of 34 director bodies, consultancies, standards setters and regulators, and organized into 14 governance domains.

  • Strategy & competition
  • Value & ROI
  • Capital allocation
  • AI inventory & ownership
  • Data, privacy & IP
  • Cyber & security
  • Risk & controls
  • Agents & autonomy
  • Third parties & concentration
  • Regulation & compliance
  • Talent & workforce
  • Board & leadership AI knowledge
  • Oversight cadence & reporting
  • Ethics & trust

What's next

Put it to work with your board

Ask the ten questions at your next meeting. Then start with a Board AI Readiness Review, and choose whether to assess, design or advise from there.

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