Event

Navigating value, risk and responsibility in the age of AI

Hypatia Kingsley, Lori Taylor 30 Oct 2026

Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from experimentation to optimization to enterprise transformation. For boards, it presents a complex challenge: how to capture AI’s strategic and operational potential while navigating questions of governance, risk and human responsibility. There is no established playbook.

At our latest BoardTalk event in New York, we brought together four perspectives spanning enterprise transformation, operating and technology leadership, corporate governance and responsible innovation: Khushi Kaur, Partner at Bain & Company; Vilas Dhar, President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation; Karen Higgins-Carter, Chief Information and Technology Officer of Kroll and public board director; and Laila Worrell, CEO of Material+ and a board director of both private and public companies. Our conversation delved into how boards can embrace the opportunities AI presents, manage risks and embrace transformation as part of their governance responsibilities.

Productivity is not transformation

One of the strongest messages from the discussion was that organizations cannot view AI primarily as a productivity tool.

Efficiency, automation and cost reduction are important, but they represent a fraction of AI’s potential impact. More consequential work involves rethinking business models, customer propositions, operating structures and the roles people will play as intelligent systems become embedded in the enterprise. The group observed that many companies remain in an experimental stage, pursuing numerous pilots without making the concentrated choices necessary to deliver enterprise value.

Khushi Kaur emphasized the need for leadership teams to identify a small number of consequential priorities, commit sufficient capital and management attention, and redesign/rethink relevant workflows rather than layering new technology over old processes.

“The companies that create meaningful value from AI will not be the ones running the most pilots. They will be the ones willing to choose two or three genuinely transformative priorities, commit the leadership attention and investment required, and redesign the business around them.”

– Khushi Kaur

The implication for boards is significant. Directors should ask not only where AI is reducing cost, but where it could change the organization’s sources of differentiation, revenue and long-term value.

Boards must govern AI, not operate it

Although AI introduces unfamiliar risks, the panel was consistent that the fundamental principles of governance have not disappeared.

Boards retain responsibility for oversight, challenge, accountability and risk appetite. They should resist being drawn into management’s role by prescribing specific technologies or applications. But neither can they treat AI as a specialist subject to be left entirely to the CIO, CTO or a board technology committee. Karen Higgins-Carter noted that she had yet to encounter a significant innovation that did not require an appropriate framework of controls. She also encouraged boards to use “inverse thinking”: rather than considering only the value AI could create, start by imagining the worst plausible outcome and work backwards to determine the necessary protections.

“Underlying principles of leadership and risk have not changed. Boards should begin with the value the organization hopes to create and work backwards from potential outcomes. That is how you establish the controls, accountability and resilience needed to innovate responsibly.”

– Karen Higgins-Carter

Good governance doesn’t mean slowing every initiative until all uncertainty has been eliminated. It means being deliberate about ownership, decision rights, escalation mechanisms, risk tolerance and the evidence management should provide to the board.

AI literacy requires participation

Meaningful oversight becomes extremely difficult when information asymmetry grows too wide between management and directors.

The panel challenged the idea that directors can develop sufficient understanding exclusively through management presentations, external briefings or annual education sessions. Boards need practical familiarity with the technology, including direct exposure to its capabilities and limitations. Khushi Kaur urged directors to experiment with AI themselves. Vilas Dhar took this a step further, suggesting that boards should have access to appropriately safeguarded AI environments or sandboxes for hands-on learning, allowing directors to explore technological innovation without relying entirely on management’s narrative.

“Boards cannot govern AI only through presentations prepared by management. Directors need a protected space to engage with these systems themselves, test their assumptions and understand how AI changes the information on which decisions are made.”

– Vilas Dhar

The goal is not to turn directors into data scientists. It is to give them sufficient understanding to recognize weak assumptions, question claims of certainty and distinguish genuine transformation from technological theatre.

Leadership begins with intellectual humility

Perhaps the most striking theme of the evening was not technological at all. Boards and executives are entering territory where experience is limited and established formulas may no longer apply. The qualities most prized in conventional leadership, certainty, expertise and a record of having “seen it before,” may need to be balanced with curiosity and intellectual humility.

Laila Worrell spoke about cultivating an environment in which leaders can acknowledge uncertainties and speak freely about knowns and unknowns, while still preserving clear boundaries between board oversight and management execution. The discussion also considered that this can be uncomfortable for management teams, who often feel it is their job to have every answer. In fact, trust is strengthened between boards and management when there is transparency about areas of conviction and areas where outcomes are less predictable.

“With unprecedented uncertainty in the macro, geopolitical and technology landscape, the board’s role is to create the conditions for honest dialogue and rigorous challenge. Management’s role is to enlist the board in navigating uncertainty and build alignment on the path forward, all while remaining clear about the line between governing and operating.”

– Laila Worrell.

In an environment of rapid change, “I don’t know” should not end a boardroom conversation. It should be the starting point for asking better questions.

AI decisions remain human decisions

The panel’s conversation repeatedly returned to a central principle: the sophistication of AI does not relieve people of responsibility for the consequences of its use. Vilas Dhar argued that organizations cannot outsource moral judgment to technology. An AI-generated recommendation is information presented to a decision-maker, not a justification for abandoning judgment or accountability.

“AI may inform a decision, but it cannot absolve us of responsibility for making it. The moment we treat an algorithmic recommendation as a substitute for human judgment, we have surrendered the very accountability governance is meant to protect.”

– Vilas Dhar

Boards should therefore ask not only whether an AI system performs accurately, but what judgments have been embedded in it, which individuals are affected, where human review remains necessary and who is accountable when the system produces an adverse outcome.

The rise of the practical philosopher

Historically, companies have sought directors with deep operating experience, financial expertise and established sector credentials. Those attributes remain important. But the AI era may also elevate the value of what the panel described as the “practical philosopher”: someone able to connect technological capability with human behavior, ethics, incentives and institutional responsibility.

“Boards will continue to need technical and operating expertise, but they will also need practical philosophers: people who understand the power of the tools and can still ask the fundamentally human questions about judgment, consequence and responsibility.”

– Karen Higgins-Carter

Many of the most important questions about AI are not, ultimately, technical:

Which decisions should be delegated to a system?
What judgment must remain human?
Who benefits from the technology?
Who bears the risk if it fails?
What trade-offs is the organization prepared to accept?
How will the board know whether AI is strengthening the enterprise or simply making existing activity faster?

These are questions of governance, leadership and institutional purpose.

Looking ahead: a different planning horizon

AI is challenging the cadence of conventional corporate planning. The panel questioned whether traditional three- and five-year roadmaps remain appropriate when capabilities, competitors and customer behaviour are evolving much more quickly. Longer-term direction remains necessary, but boards may need shorter decision cycles, more frequent reassessment and a clearer distinction between enduring strategic principles and assumptions that may quickly become obsolete.

At the same time, AI governance cannot be reduced to a compliance exercise or delegated to a single function. Boards are being asked to oversee a transformation that touches strategy, capital allocation, risk, talent and organizational design. Success will demand curiosity, courage and a willingness to reconsider established assumptions. The companies that thrive will be those whose directors and executives learn fast, focus their investments, ask better questions and remain accountable for the consequences of their choices.

No one has navigated this precise transformation before. Good governance begins with acknowledging that reality, learning faster and ensuring that human responsibility keeps pace with technological capability.

Hypatia Kingsley

Hypatia Kingsley is Partner and Head of the Americas. She drives business growth and leads a team of leadership consultants across various industries. With over 25 years of advisory experience, Hypatia specializes in fintech, financial services, and social enterprises, focusing…

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Lori Taylor

Lori Taylor is a Consultant supporting clients across all industry sectors with a focus on C-level recruiting within the Information Technology, Digital Transformation, and Human Resources verticals. She also supports both public and private company Board Director talent searches. With…

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