How AI is Already Being Used in the Boardroom [OnBoard]

AI is rapidly reshaping how organizations operate, and the boardroom is no exception. In this episode, Tim Adair, CPO of OnBoard, joins Doug Chia to explore how AI is changing the way boards function today and how it will influence governance in the years ahead. Drawing on insights from OnBoard’s board effectiveness research, Tim explains why many boards struggle to operate at full effectiveness and how emerging technologies are both exposing and addressing those gaps.

They discuss the practical applications of AI in governance, from improving access to real-time data to enhancing decision-making and strategic oversight, while they examine the limits of technology, why AI cannot replace human judgment, and why trust, alignment, and accountability remain foundational.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Doug Chia: Welcome to the Public Company Series Podcast, powered by OnBoard: giving boards the clarity, security, and insights they need to make better decisions and deliver lasting value. I'm your host, Doug Chia. This podcast series is designed to give corporate directors, executives, and governance professionals the insights and tools they need to build boards that are agile, resilient, and prepared for the future.

[00:00:31] Doug Chia: It's based on the book Board Structure and Composition, which is part of the Public Company Series published by the New York Stock Exchange and JP Morgan. My guest for today's episode is Tim Adair, Chief Product Officer of OnBoard, and OnBoard is the lead sponsor for this season of the Public Company Series Podcast,

[00:00:52] Doug Chia: and so we thank you. We really appreciate that. And so Tim, welcome to the show. 

[00:00:59] Tim Adair: Thanks, Doug. Great [00:01:00] to be here. Uh, excited to walk through all of the AI topics that we have to cover today. 

[00:01:06] Doug Chia: So the theme of today's episode is how AI is already in boardrooms and shaping how directors do their jobs. So I'll start by setting a broad context and then we'll dive into your insights based on everything you're seeing and hearing from people in the boardrooms.

[00:01:25] Doug Chia: So when people talk about AI and boards, it's usually in the context of how boards should be overseeing AI, both in terms of monitoring risk and working with management on the company's strategy, as AI changes every industry in ways we cannot yet foresee.

[00:01:44] Doug Chia: From the beginning of AI emerging as a corporate governance topic, I've actually been more intrigued by how AI might give boards much needed tools to help them do their jobs better.

[00:01:56] Doug Chia: Particularly narrowing the information gap between [00:02:00] boards and management, which I see is the biggest risk in corporate governance, or the biggest weak spot. Tim's team at OnBoard recently issued a board effectiveness survey report showing that AI has already dramatically penetrated board work with nearly 7 in 10 board professionals using some form of AI for board work, and 40% of those using more than one AI tool.

[00:02:29] Doug Chia: So this indicates that this, it's experimentation rather than isolated adoption going on. And like all new powerful technologies, AI presents huge opportunities, but also major risks that fall into that dreaded "unknown unknowns" category, and while we wanna believe that technology will help us be better at what we do, we all know from experience that could actually make life more difficult.

[00:02:57] Doug Chia: So Tim has been working with boards and their [00:03:00] advisors at the front lines of all of this. So Tim, let's get into this.

[00:03:05] Doug Chia: So AI has been framed as what's coming, but your data and what we are seeing firsthand suggests that AI is already embedded in board work. How are you seeing AI change how boards function and not just what they talk about?

[00:03:26] Tim Adair: Things are changing really just from, um, reading and directors consuming content to, uh, using AI to summarize and give them direction on what they should be asking. So, uh, being able to generate sharper questions, spend time on decisions rather than turning pages and trying to consume a document, uh, prep can be done ahead of time, uh, and outside material can be used.

[00:03:58] Tim Adair: If directors are using [00:04:00] AI, then they can do additional research, so it can be very pointed. Um, we're seeing much more effective conversations versus, uh, directors having to catch up while they're in process or, or in meetings. 

[00:04:14] Doug Chia: When they actually, you know, sit down with the materials. Do you think that they're processing the information differently than, say, a year before?

[00:04:24] Tim Adair: Yeah, this really compresses the, the prep time and increases the readiness of how they come to meetings. They're able to bring more context and able to have deeper conversations versus having to catch up in the flow, in the flow of the meeting. 

[00:04:42] Doug Chia: And have you heard them talk about how their interaction with management might be changing because of this, you know, for better or for worse, or, you know, hopefully making it better?

[00:04:55] Tim Adair: Yeah. I, I think because of the additional context [00:05:00] and summarization and ability to come with deeper questions, I think it's elevating the dialogue in a, in a meeting, uh, versus having to catch up and to ask questions. A lot of the dots can be connected beforehand, so it's really raising that, that level of, uh

[00:05:21] Tim Adair: dialogue, which is really interesting. And so that's a lot of what we're trying to do within the product, but then also facilitate within meetings when customers are using the platform. It's a very interesting time. 

[00:05:33] Doug Chia: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think all of us hope that this is gonna be a positive, um, for board interaction and eventually, you know, corporate governance overall.

[00:05:44] Doug Chia: But I guess it could shift some expectations here in terms of people thinking, okay, you're using AI tools so you should be contributing more. You know, there's kind of higher standards for what people assume, [00:06:00] how, how prepared the board members come in and have you been hearing or seeing that kind of thing?

[00:06:06] Tim Adair: The expectation is changing and so the AI prep and using AI to prep for a meeting is raising that the baseline of that expectation and the "I didn't have time", or "It's just too much to consume", becomes less acceptable. Um, then directors, they're expected to arrive with synthesized views and a bit deeper insight given that there's more to, to this prep than just, uh, reading through a deck or a few emails.

[00:06:39] Tim Adair: It's really that expectation. Uh, the CEO or management team can have an expectation that director is coming prepped and like, if they can summarize a deck and, and have some questions ready to go that are relevant for this agenda item, it goes a long way. 

[00:06:57] Doug Chia: So in terms of collecting [00:07:00] data using AI, what have you heard about, you know, the type of information and the quality of that information,

[00:07:08] Doug Chia: um, as well as the volume that AI helps them gather?

[00:07:13] Tim Adair: It really expands beyond just the board packet, the board doc, the board book that's provided. So, um, there can be comparisons. Directors can ask, what am I missing? You know, what are things that I should be thinking about? And I think it, it, it reduces that, uh, like the need for a director to really dig deeper on their own.

[00:07:39] Tim Adair: They can use some of the AI tools to allow for those deeper summaries and being able to thread topics, uh, that may have come up in previous meetings and using that to their advantage. So I think there's a lot of connecting dots that can happen outside of a [00:08:00] board setting that can, can happen to help prep and to have really thoughtful conversations, uh, during the meetings.

[00:08:08] Doug Chia: Yeah. And so, you know, in terms of helping people prepare better, you know, when I've used AI tools, sometimes I'm able to help me digest a, a large volume of material. But sometimes I, you know, there's a topic and I go out there and I try to see, you know, use AI tools to help me just gather, and it comes back with all kinds of stuff

[00:08:34] Doug Chia: and I'm like, "Wow, I had no idea there was so much written about this subject in ways, you know, all kinds of angles and stuff." So where are we in terms of helping to digest versus just creating a lot more work or, you know, just more stuff to read. 

[00:08:55] Tim Adair: That is a big topic, and I think one of the ways that I've [00:09:00] seen AI be very effective in this is enabling me or enabling a director to see

[00:09:06] Tim Adair: patterns more effectively. So yes, there's a lot of data, but what are the trends and what are the themes? And being able to bring those forward and use those to create better conversation versus having to read through docs and long extensive content. It's really bring, bring forward what's relevant for me, and if that's helpful for conversations, then there can be additional questions to go deeper.

[00:09:33] Tim Adair: I think that that's a really unique opportunity that we have now is to connect these, these dots and these threads that happen over time to what have others done in this case, using inspiration from how, how have others made decisions and how can we take that into account, into this specific situation. Like that's possible with the AI tools that are available, uh, in the market today, which is a pretty [00:10:00] unique time.

[00:10:01] Doug Chia: Yeah, so that's, I mean, that's really interesting in terms of the predictive possibilities and kind of using trends to kind of see where things are going. Because a lot of what we talk about in corporate governance is that it's, 

[00:10:15] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:10:16] Doug Chia: are you, you know, so-called future proofing the board, future proofing the company?

[00:10:21] Doug Chia: Are you peeking around corners? Obviously the, there's always, well, what are our competitors doing or what are they thinking? Are you seeing people actually go in that direction and are we actually at a point where we can use the tool without being kind of just like, you know, the magic eight ball where you roll the thing and 

[00:10:41] Tim Adair: Yeah.

[00:10:41] Doug Chia: and you really have no idea, you know, it's kind of like, did I just roll the dice on this thing? 

[00:10:47] Tim Adair: Yeah. I mean, I think we, everyone has to be aware that content or summaries that are generated by AI, there's always room for, is this, is there hallucination happening here? Is this [00:11:00] accurate? And I think that there's always going to be a level of "Hey, we need

[00:11:06] Tim Adair: humans to be able to understand and like validate that this is accurate." And so I view this as one, it's like a signal, like we've got, um, summaries from AI, here's some themes, and now I have to take my own experience and apply it to that and make sure like, does this, is this gonna work? Does this connect to what I need to talk through or ask questions, uh, around a specific topic?

[00:11:31] Tim Adair: So I think the interpretation of that is, is critical. And um, I mean I have had conversations with directors that say like, I, I don't know about summarizing a board book. Like that's my job. I should summarize the board book and I should understand it. But I think that there is an opportunity, yes, that is true,

[00:11:51] Tim Adair: there's an opportunity to use these tools to have a, like, even deeper understanding and not just rely on AI to just gimme a [00:12:00] summary, and I'm gonna regurgitate that back and, but use it as a, as a signal. 

[00:12:05] Doug Chia: At least right now, people say, well, uh, the, the AI, it'll help you find a lot of information or digest things to supplement, you know, what you are already consuming and it should not replace that.

[00:12:21] Doug Chia: But some people foresee a day where AI essentially replaces, uh, traditional forms of, uh, traditional third party inputs that we get right now. Then you mentioned consultants and experts and it's like, okay, well we gather this information and yeah, we need someone to help us validate this stuff. But I think what we're seeing is, uh, this trend to actually

[00:12:52] Doug Chia: say, "Okay, we don't need these outside experts or internal experts anymore. We do, we save a lot of money, um, [00:13:00] because we got AI, Hey, you know?" And so where's this going in terms of the validation part of it?

[00:13:07] Tim Adair: My team, specifically on the product side, is doing a lot of work around how we can inform content that's generated using AI in the, in the product.

[00:13:17] Tim Adair: So being able to use an organization's, not only their board books, but what was, what was set in in previous meetings, what, uh, is the context for their industry for the specific vertical? Where are they located? What are the competitors? And being able to use that as part of summarization or part of any kind of

[00:13:39] Tim Adair: content that's generated, uh, in front of a director. And so it's not just using, uh, the public LLM and saying, "Hey, gimme this an answer to this question.", but it's being informed, um, with governance specific data. We're also looking at how we can inform some of these questions [00:14:00] with third party data that may be behind a, a paywall.

[00:14:04] Tim Adair: So a university has governance specific content and this, these are things that are um, not publicly available. We we're looking at how we can use that content through a partnership with a university or another organization and, and inform how we're providing better summaries and how we're leading directors and eventually how we're leading management teams on how they should create content to present in front of a board

[00:14:30] Tim Adair: because we know who said what we know, Hey, we've got some examples of how others have done this in the past. And then providing that, uh, through the AI that's generated through our, our model. So it's a bit of a, a different way to think about it, but it's a really unique time to provide some of that, that guidance, um, to our users.

[00:14:52] Doug Chia: Yeah, I guess that's, that's interesting. It's like, um, you know, obviously use AI to gather [00:15:00] information and like we're talking about, there's, you know, what people call hallucinations or just like wrong stuff. You're searching through a garbage pile, you might find good stuff, you're gonna find garbage too, obviously.

[00:15:12] Doug Chia: And so, you know, the, I guess the consultants could help with the inputs and say, all right, 

[00:15:20] Tim Adair: Yes. 

[00:15:21] Doug Chia: Here's the pool of information. 

[00:15:23] Tim Adair: Yes. 

[00:15:23] Doug Chia: Based on our expertise and obviously our own, you know, trove of information and maybe give companies guidance on, alright, here's the pool of information you should be pulling from and here's how to maybe interpret it or, you know, discount some of its, um, and so, you know, perhaps the role of the advisor doesn't go away, but it does change and, you know, but it, they're still subject matter experts.

[00:15:52] Tim Adair: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's the, there's a lot of value in that, in knowing what, what's the best [00:16:00] content to feed into, uh a board portal to be able to have the right, uh, context and content to drive the AI to provide really solid direction and, and feedback. So it's very, yeah, there's a, there is a lot of value there.

[00:16:18] Tim Adair: It's just how, uh, we would pull together the content and make it useful for directors or for management teams, uh, as they're prepping. 

[00:16:28] Doug Chia: Your data also suggests that boards feel more effective and collaborative, um, as a result of using AI. And so in terms of kind of the word "feel", what do you think is going on there?

[00:16:45] Doug Chia: Is that just kind of a like, uh, well, I, I went through that, so I, I just kind of more confident now, even though actually it might not have actually done anything to make me smarter or more prepared. [00:17:00] 

[00:17:00] Tim Adair: I think that a lot of this is a prepared director will, is gonna participate more. Uh, there's, you know, better participation feels like stronger collaboration across the board and with, with the management team.

[00:17:15] Tim Adair: So I think that that is a lot of where it, this is, this is coming from is just the tools that are available allow for much deeper prep and being able to know what questions to, to ask, uh, at the right time. And that just provides more confidence. Uh, as we walk into these meetings, we know, okay, I gotta, at least I understand the general summary of what they're trying to communicate.

[00:17:42] Tim Adair: And I've got two or three questions that are ready to go, that are relevant for this and that, that allows for, I think, a, a deeper level of conversation just with that, uh, prep in hand. 

[00:17:55] Doug Chia: Yeah. I mean, I think that's a big point because you do have a phenomenon where some board [00:18:00] members are just brimming with confidence because they're brimming with confidence about everything.

[00:18:04] Doug Chia: And then you have other directors who are kind of like, uh, gosh, I'm, I'm the dumbest person in the room, kind of, uh, uh, thing, you know, inferiority complex, if you will. And so if they use AI and maybe it doesn't make them the smartest person in the room or the most thickly informed, at least it kind of gives them the confidence to like speak up.

[00:18:27] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:18:27] Doug Chia: And not be so shy. But then I guess, you know, there's a difference between engagement, like personal engagement and then actual collaboration. And I'm not sure exactly how we measure that. And I don't know if you've gotten any feedback on kind of the difference between just being, you know, people contributing versus an actual kind of like group collaboration phenomenon.

[00:18:54] Tim Adair: That's still something that we're, we're looking at. We have some thoughts and [00:19:00] things that we're looking at doing in the future, uh, as part of the platform to be able to help measure that, um, and provide a, some more insights on kinda what, what's happening in the meetings. Who's saying what, how is the interaction?

[00:19:14] Tim Adair: Like what are the topics that are covered? But I think it's a, it's, a good question is are these tools that directors now have at their disposal creating better and, and deeper conversations? And I think at some point we'll be able to see. At least with some of our, our customers, like once they start to use these tools, do those conversations and do the meetings become more effective?

[00:19:37] Tim Adair: And some of that we're, we're looking at how we can build, um, tools within our product to, to track that. And so this is kind of a future vision that we have. And so I think there's, there's a lot that we can talk about related to insights and what's happening from meeting to meeting and are specific things being said and committed to, and are those [00:20:00] being done?

[00:20:01] Tim Adair: Like with all of the data that we have at our disposal, we can start connecting those dots. It doesn't have to be a manual process like it is in many cases today. 

[00:20:11] Doug Chia: The stats we were citing before talked about AI usage by, in the boardroom, whether it's by directors or the people who are prepping them or advising them is higher,

[00:20:23] Doug Chia: I mean, at least higher than I thought it would be. And this 'cause your data were, that was collected what? That last year, beginning of last year. And so, so for 7 in 10, I thought, wow, that is pretty high already. And a lot of them are saying, "Well, I'm also using more than one tool." Um, which makes sense.

[00:20:43] Doug Chia: But then on the other hand, the directors rate themselves pretty low on, you know, being tech savvy. And so how do you interpret, or what do you do with that? Like how 

[00:20:56] Tim Adair: Yeah, 

[00:20:56] Doug Chia: how are you interpreting that?

[00:20:57] Tim Adair: I, I, I think that it can go in a lot of [00:21:00] different directions. One thing that I think about is I think a lot of larger institutions don't have, like, there's not a necessarily an AI policy for directors.

[00:21:09] Tim Adair: There, there's some guidelines, but maybe it's not very explicit. I think informal use, uh, spreads through some of these consumer tools and so some are using it, some are not, and maybe it's used here and there and I'm gonna download the board doc and upload it. And like, it's, it's maybe not used consistently.

[00:21:30] Tim Adair: So I think everybody's hearing about AI is taking over and automation and maybe there's, it's a little bit, uh, hard to understand how to apply that in, in a lot of ways without just a very simple tool that's built into a, a board portal to allow me to consume and, and summarize. So that's probably part of it is, uh, is just the, the enablement of these tools can be inconsistent unless [00:22:00] it's very simple and baked into a, into a process.

[00:22:03] Doug Chia: Yeah. And I guess, you know, the AI tool actually could help them help make people more tech savvy. 

[00:22:10] Tim Adair: Could, yes. 

[00:22:11] Doug Chia: Because these things are incredibly user friendly in terms of the LLMs and ironically, maybe I used AI to figure out how to use AI, you know, it's kind of like 

[00:22:23] Tim Adair: Absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:22:23] Doug Chia: Well, actually in, in my case, it was whatever software you're using or you know, website you go to nowadays, there's something that pops up and like, "Hi, I'm your AI friend." You know?

[00:22:36] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:22:36] Doug Chia: "I can help you do this, that and the other thing, and I can help you write your emails and stuff." 

[00:22:41] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:22:41] Doug Chia: And I'm like "I wanna write my own email. Okay? I don't like, yeah, thank you very much, but I don't want your canned response." So then I go to something else, some AI tool, and I'm like, "How do I turn off this in my email box?"

[00:22:56] Tim Adair: Yeah, sure. 

[00:22:56] Doug Chia: And then it tells me, "Here's how, you know, here's where to go to turn it off." And [00:23:00] I'm like, "Oh, okay, cool." So as annoying as it was, you know, over there, it's great over here.

[00:23:07] Doug Chia: So hopefully it helps directors actually use the tools better, which I think the old, you know, kind of traditional tools really didn't do that. They just kind of made life more difficult.

[00:23:17] Doug Chia: So in this corporate world, we use this term the artificially intelligent boardroom.

[00:23:25] Doug Chia: And you know, and that sounds really cool, but it's also, when you start to think about it a little bit unsettling, management often complains that the board is, you know, they only have a surface level knowledge of something and they think they know more than they actually do. But then I guess with AI, the board members presumably come with more than a surface level knowledge.

[00:23:51] Doug Chia: But then management is probably looking up and saying, okay, they, they're coming in thinking they know, but it truly [00:24:00] is artificial intelligence. They actually don't know very much and they just kinda read it through some LLM, so it's still surface level, even though they think it's deep. And so do you see this, I mean, it's a very cynical way of, of looking at I know, but, um, yeah.

[00:24:19] Doug Chia: I, I don't know how you see this playing out.

[00:24:21] Tim Adair: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a good, it's a good question. I think, uh, in, in some ways when questions are answered through AI, it can create an illusion of like, oh, I know this. Like I it's an illusion of mastery. 

[00:24:36] Doug Chia: Yeah. 

[00:24:37] Tim Adair: Like this is the answer and that's it. And I'm, and I can regurgitate that.

[00:24:41] Tim Adair: I think that one way to approach it is content that's summarized, or content that's created using AI can be used as prompts for questions like, okay, I'm gonna validate this, I can question this. But not as conclusions. Like, [00:25:00] this isn't the final. Like, maybe I need to validate, I need to understand more, um, use and use AI to help structure questions, to dig deeper.

[00:25:09] Tim Adair: I've found in, in, in many cases, I've used it to like, okay, here's a topic and this is, these are things that I'm thinking about. What am I missing and what questions should I be asking? 'cause then it gets to a deeper level of understanding, um, and, and proposes questions that I, I didn't think about. 

[00:25:29] Doug Chia: Yeah.

[00:25:29] Doug Chia: So I guess, you know, one way to use it is not to try to become, you know, the world's greatest expert by using AI, but perhaps almost like admitting what you don't know and use AI saying, okay, look, my knowledge is limited. I've got a meeting with management coming up. What questions should I be asking them?

[00:25:55] Doug Chia: What should management be explaining to me [00:26:00] that, that I, if I'm not satisfied with that answer, then there's a problem here. 

[00:26:06] Tim Adair: Yeah. And, and follow up questions. I mean, I, I, I've even, and used it in situations where, um, there's a conversation happening and somebody says something and I ask, uh, the LLM like, "Hey, what, what other questions should we be thinking about here?

[00:26:22] Tim Adair: What are we missing on the fly?" Which is very interesting to help redirect, uh, the, the discussion. 

[00:26:30] Doug Chia: I, I guess I can also use it maybe to validate what management says, because you know, obviously management, they, they spin, right? They're gonna spin. They have to, um, they're human and maybe it helps the directors see the spin on the ball a little bit better that, um, okay.

[00:26:48] Doug Chia: They just threw me a curve ball. And maybe I wouldn't have realized it last year, but now I'm kind of seeing, wait a second, they spun this a little bit. 

[00:26:56] Tim Adair: Yeah, I think that with the right [00:27:00] context, and this is a direction that, that we've been thinking about from a product perspective is how can you help a director in that situation have the right context, um, based on, on what they're asking.

[00:27:14] Tim Adair: And, and so I think you may not be able to get that just from a generally public publicly available data in an LLM, but if you have the context of what was said and, and what is this organization and what are they trying to present, you can get to some pretty unique, uh, questions and additional, deeper data.

[00:27:36] Doug Chia: And so, you know, if someone asks you, okay, "Tim, how do I put that into practice? You know, I'm a director, tell me how to actually do that." What would you, yeah. How would you kind of like instruct this person or kind of tutor them in terms of, okay, here's, here's how you would actually do that. 

[00:27:55] Tim Adair: So if it's outside of, uh

[00:27:58] Tim Adair: a board [00:28:00] platform and it's just general usage of a an LLM I think in giving it context for the organization, giving it context for board content that has been shared, uh, competitors, and being able to make sure that it's not just going out and trying to find it on its own. I think it's about creating these very targeted, targeted set of data, targeted prompts.

[00:28:25] Tim Adair: And I think part of it is going to be not just, "Hey, summarize this for me.", But trying to get to a specific, uh, end game like "Summarize this and tell me what I'm missing in this specific, uh, conversation uh, based on the data that I have from Q4.", Like being more specific, you're gonna get more specific answers and hopefully get to where you're trying to go.

[00:28:50] Tim Adair: So it's, it's about the context. It's about the data provided and the questions that are asked, and the prompts that are created, uh, to get at [00:29:00] the right data and the right, the right answers. 

[00:29:02] Doug Chia: Say they were to use, you know, your product, you know, the board is already using your product, and then they want, they ask you, okay, Tim, how do I use this?

[00:29:12] Doug Chia: Um, you know, in this way, what does that look like? Because now they're, they're within this closed loop of essentially just board stuff. And then, yeah, how are they supposed to use that to say, okay, I wanna use this to get some insights or, or test some theories here. 

[00:29:32] Tim Adair: We're making that very simple in inside of OnBoard.

[00:29:36] Tim Adair: So as a director, they can log in and they're, they're gonna have the ability to ask questions of the data that's within their organization. Um, plus being able to leverage a LLM content behind the scenes. But it's been informed based on the organization's content, so it knows, like, this is a, a company that is in a [00:30:00] specific industry and it's going to provide answers within those guardrails within the onboard system.

[00:30:07] Tim Adair: And so just like they would use any kind of consumer based LLM, that's, that experience is baked into the product. They can ask questions like, compare the last two board meetings and what was said about this specific topic. Inside the product, they will get, uh, a summary, a readout, and then they can go back and forth with the, within the, the chat experience and ask what questions should I ask?

[00:30:34] Tim Adair: How should I prepare? Like what are things that we need to be aware of? And so we're, we're baking that right into the product that's front and center, and every director would be able to interact with that. Our goal is that directors don't have to go and take a document and download it and upload it somewhere else and try to have their own

[00:30:56] Tim Adair: set of, uh, context that they're providing to [00:31:00] AI, but we'll just give that to the user right out of the box. And as there's more and more data that is available for that organization within OnBoard, it's gonna be more and more effective, uh, as they're asking questions, um, within the product as we look ahead of, of just being able to consume, like board book content and summaries,

[00:31:23] Tim Adair: it's transcripts and we're recording meetings and we've got all of that content. So being able to say who said what in this meeting from Q2 of last year, and what are some of these topics that thread through meetings? Um, what were the decisions made? Being able to have all of that at a director's disposal, even in a meeting, these can be, these questions can be asked is a pretty, uh, unique time.

[00:31:51] Tim Adair: So that's all part of our AI vision that is coming together this year. 

[00:31:56] Doug Chia: Yeah, so, we'll, yeah, we'll get more into that. But I guess, you [00:32:00] know, we were talking about volume before. Now we're not just inside the, the, the garden wall. Um, we're out in the entire world. And so it's endless, right? Whatever's on the internet, everything, it, it's just endless amounts of information and, you know, at some point you have to say like, "Okay, there are limits here."

[00:32:24] Doug Chia: You know, "We we're gonna put some guardrails around here, otherwise people are just gonna like, just drown in information and we gotta like, somehow find a way to like preserve sanity." Have you heard from clients or talked to people about this, this, this essential, this dilemma? And how do you guard against it?

[00:32:48] Tim Adair: Yeah, I think this is, there's a lot of data, a lot to, to dig through the one area that we're pointed to consistently is help us optimize [00:33:00] for decisions. Not just give us all the data, but we want to drive to decisions. And how do we do the that more effectively? To do that, AI should help bring forward what are the top risks, what are the key questions like we talked about?

[00:33:14] Tim Adair: What are the things that we're not thinking about? And then help optimize for decisions that need to be made. And, and that's part of what we're trying to do from a product perspective, is shoot for that experience, not just hand over summary and tons of data and then a director needs to figure it out on their own,

[00:33:34] Tim Adair: but how do we help them optimize that based on decisions that need to be made, um, and, and guidance they need to provide? 

[00:33:43] Doug Chia: So let's turn to risk. Um, and the, the risk of, of how you use these types of tools for board work specifically. I'm sure you've talked to lawyers, uh, [00:34:00] you probably have unsolicited comments from lawyers.

[00:34:03] Doug Chia: You have your own lawyers saying, "Oh my God, this presents this risk, that risk, you know, shut it down." What are kind of the common things that, that lawyers bring up as this is like, you know, this is really scary stuff. 

[00:34:17] Tim Adair: This is a, a big area that we're, we're talking about a lot. Um, a lot of conversations around confidentiality and, and data exposure.

[00:34:27] Tim Adair: I think big one is just accuracy and halluc hallucinations that are going to happen when, uh, LLMs provide a summary based on content. Um, I think it's the, the data exposure one is big. I mean, that's part of our whole OnBoard's focus is keep everything within four walls, and we have, uh, our, uh, enterprise, uh, AI [00:35:00] guardrails in place,

[00:35:00] Tim Adair: so nothing is being used to train. And so that's all part of this discussion. And I think there is, there's risk, uh, dropping, uh, proprietary content into a public LLM and that that's part of what people are trying to figure out. I think it's, it's also just who has access to what data. And within the onboard product, there's a high level of permissions and, and structure.

[00:35:29] Tim Adair: But, uh, if, if data is made available, uh, in a public LLM, what does that, what does that mean? Um, and if it's somehow uncovered by someone that shouldn't have it, that's, that's a, a challenge. So I think that's, those are the big topics that are coming up. I mean, accuracy is the, the big one. Accuracy and data exposure through, through public, public means.

[00:35:56] Doug Chia: And so in, you know, so you're, I mean, you're one of the [00:36:00] service providers and so, I mean, you are not the LLM company itself, but I guess, you know, when you tell people that, "Hey, we have these AI tools on our platform." Do you get any resistance from people, you know, whether they're lawyers or, or other kind of risk averse type saying, yeah, I'm not so sure we want that.

[00:36:22] Doug Chia: Like, we're, we're gonna hold off on that because we're afraid of this, that, you know, we've been told these things are, are real, real dangers. 

[00:36:32] Tim Adair: Yeah, I mean, this is, there's a wide range. There's going to be ear earlier adopters and there's gonna be customers that don't want anything to do with it yet. And we're, we're fine with that.

[00:36:43] Tim Adair: We allow for, uh, a scaled approach. So. There can be, you know, pieces of it can be used or you can go all in or you can do none of it. But our enterprise agreement behind the scenes with any LLM that we're using, there [00:37:00] is no data that is trained. Like they're not, it's not being saved and trained. And so we're very specific around that.

[00:37:07] Doug Chia: You are not essentially using one client's information to train the AI tool to be smarter for the other clients or anything like that? 

[00:37:18] Tim Adair: Never. Yeah, never. That, that's definitely not, never happening. And we we're never mixing any, any data. It's all being used with just within that organization. Um. And that's part of our foundation.

[00:37:33] Tim Adair: Like we, within our, our platform view, our foundation is security and everything is built on that. And that includes everything we're doing with AI. Everything should stay within the four walls. And, um, we're never saving anything to train it, to make it better and another customer would be able to take advantage of it.

[00:37:55] Doug Chia: But I guess there, there, there must be pressure to do that, right? At some [00:38:00] point people are gonna say, well, why not? Like if we, if, if you want your tool to be smarter, shouldn't it just benefit from everything that it's getting or hearing without, you know, there's gotta be a way to do that without blowing a confidentiality.

[00:38:18] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:38:18] Doug Chia: There's some way to anonymize all of it to, to make someone, you know, this, this tool smarter. 

[00:38:24] Tim Adair: Part of our direction is to look at how we would enable benchmarking and within benchmarking bench benchmarks, we, we would look at kinda what you're referring to, but it would never be, it would be anonymized, but it would be taken up to a level where this is a organization that is maybe in this specific industry, but we would, it would never be something that we would make, that we would use to train a model.

[00:38:53] Doug Chia: So, I mean, you hear, you must hear from people saying, well, attorney client privilege, that, [00:39:00] you know, we don't wanna use your tool because the minute we do, or even if we use an a board portal, we're blowing the privilege because now you, Tim Adair have all our material. And um, you know, and that's a problem.

[00:39:16] Doug Chia: I don't know if you've heard that. 

[00:39:18] Tim Adair: I didn't heard that too much. I mean, uh, anything that is. Our, our security and permissions are very strict, so anybody even on the OnBoard side would never have access to any of this content, and that's part of the way that the platform is, is built. So I think that the, the way that we have it structured, we make it super secure, like bank security level.

[00:39:46] Tim Adair: Like this is, this is highly confidential data and it's treated as such. And um, only people that should have access to it can see it. Uh, data retention policies and all of that are in place, [00:40:00] so everything can be managed and deleted if needed. It's, it's all part of the, part of the structure. 

[00:40:08] Doug Chia: I, I mean, it kind of reminds me of the early days of cloud computing.

[00:40:11] Tim Adair: Mm-hmm. 

[00:40:12] Doug Chia: And cloud storage or I know some companies were hesitant saying, uh, "No, if we take things from our server and put them on your cloud, then you have all of our stuff and we're not comfortable with that." I mean, were there any learnings for you and your industry in terms of how people eventually got comfortable?

[00:40:37] Doug Chia: Obviously everybody uses, you know, storage in the cloud now, so somehow everybody got comfortable. I'm not exactly sure how, I wasn't involved in that, but I remember the debates. 

[00:40:47] Tim Adair: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, absolutely. That's, that's very relevant. And I, I have com used that comparison where this transition from, the transition from on-prem to cloud, [00:41:00] similar to where we're headed with, uh, the new AI opportunities.

[00:41:04] Tim Adair: And I think that everything needs to be based on security. Uh, and I think at some point everyone's going to see the value in this, and there's going to be, um, specific solutions that enable really significant value. And as long as it's based in, in a secure manner, uh, it's going to, people will get comfortable and if they don't, they're gonna be left behind, which is the, which is the bigger issue.

[00:41:34] Tim Adair: Like if people aren't getting on board and figuring this out and experimenting and trying things, other people are, and, and those are the ones that are gonna be further ahead. So it's gonna be a little bit of that. 

[00:41:44] Doug Chia: Yeah, I guess it's kind of like just in business in general. 

[00:41:48] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:41:48] Doug Chia: The risk of not doing it or the risk of taking the wait and see approach, that that is a big risk.

[00:41:56] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:41:57] Doug Chia: You could be left in the dust. Um, [00:42:00] uh, you know, if you wait too long.

[00:42:03] Doug Chia: What do directors seem to misunderstand the most about that area? 

[00:42:09] Tim Adair: The way that, that we're trying to solve that is through a super high-end experience that doesn't require directors to have a learning curve. So we're, we're trying to embed solutions powered by AI into the product that allow for the director to log in and just, we're gonna do it for you.

[00:42:32] Tim Adair: We're gonna give you the best experience and the best AI generated content and summary that's based on your organization's content and your specific industry tailored to vertical. So that, that's how we're trying to approach it. I think there's, if you're talking about outside of OnBoard, there's many different ways to cut it, but it's gonna be bigger, more significant learning curve.

[00:42:58] Doug Chia: And so for the directors who [00:43:00] aren't using this yet, now we're talking in general about AI tools. Look, if you know the average age of directors, they're older, they're of a older generation. And you know, when social media started, uh, coming onto the scene and companies started using social media, a lot of directors were like, "Why are we even using social media?"

[00:43:24] Doug Chia: And then it was very apparent that they didn't even understand what social media was or did. Um, kind of like those first congressional hearings about social media, it, it was clear that members of Congress were absolutely clueless about what social media was. And so when, you know, those types of directors are approaching you and you're trying to convince them, what do they most often misunderstand or just not realize what AI is and what it isn't?

[00:43:59] Tim Adair: Yeah, I think [00:44:00] it's the, it's the, the power of what it can do versus the, oh, this is scary. I don't know how to use it. I think that getting people past that, um. As I've talked to directors, uh, some of them, once you get 'em, get 'em beyond the, uh, this is a little scary and I don't get it, it opens up a whole new world,

[00:44:22] Tim Adair: because you have everything at your fingertips. I think that's the, the biggest piece, uh, is, is just getting beyond that. "Hey, I don't know how to use it." Um, but just trying and then starting to see the, the value of it. 

[00:44:39] Doug Chia: And I guess unlike social media, usually when you, if you demo AI or you test it, you're gonna come back with the reaction of, "Wow, this could be really helpful."

[00:44:49] Doug Chia: Um, whereas social media. I'm sure you tested for a lot of people and they're just like, "Uh, yeah, okay. I have no use for this." 

[00:44:58] Tim Adair: Yeah, yeah. It's, you're [00:45:00] gonna see, yeah, you're gonna see the value of it. It's going to be something that is, it makes sense, like if you're looking at a, a summary and it's relevant to you, it's, you're gonna start to see like, oh, I can really use this to my advantage.

[00:45:15] Doug Chia: Yeah. Yeah. And so in terms of, you know, there's using it to your advantage and then there's kind of gonna be the problem, or already is the problem o overreliance, right? 

[00:45:26] Tim Adair: Sure. 

[00:45:26] Doug Chia: For example, there was a snowstorm, you know, or snowstorm predicted to dump a foot of snow on my driveway and I was thinking, okay, well let me, let me ask LLM, you know, ChatGPT,

[00:45:42] Doug Chia: alright, how should I prepare for this storm? You know, do you know about the storm? Yes, I live here, you know, what kind of salt should I be using? Should, when should I apply it? And all this stuff. And it gave me all these, it gave me like strategies in terms of, okay, here's what [00:46:00] to do before the storm in terms of pre-treating and all this stuff.

[00:46:04] Doug Chia: And I was like, I guess I'll do it because you know, it's pulling from the entire world of information. 

[00:46:12] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:46:12] Doug Chia: And I've got my limited experience of snowstorms. And so if that's what it says to do, I'll just, I guess I'll just do it. As I hear myself speak, I'm like, okay, how naive am I? But I gotta believe that that's, you know, that is a problem.

[00:46:30] Tim Adair: Yeah. I think this is related to how AI can propose options. And those could be, it can be a variety of different ways to cut it. If you ask, uh, uh, ChatGPT or any LLM, like, okay, gimme a few different solutions, or, I don't like that one, what else it is gonna tell you? It's gonna cater to whatever you want it to, to go and find next.

[00:46:55] Tim Adair: And so I think, uh, as directors, humans [00:47:00] need to own that decision logic and be able to make the call and have that kind of guidance and not just take what AI is saying, uh, have the ability to like, okay, we should connect the dots and make sure that this is accurate and this is going to lead us down a good path.

[00:47:19] Tim Adair: So it's that the checks and balance balances between just like, okay, this is the option that I have, uh, that AI gave me to, "Hey, we should double check this and make sure that it's connected to evidence that this is the right direction to go and the assumptions that I have and what I know can help drive that decision."

[00:47:43] Doug Chia: Yeah. So you're using, you're trying to exercise your best judgment, right? 

[00:47:47] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:47:47] Doug Chia: And that's very much a part of governance is, is kind of your directors, they have a duty to use their own business judgment. Um, but I guess so, you know, just kind of [00:48:00] following on my, you know, not so hypothetical, um, you know, I got one answer from ChatGPT and I was like, oh my God, this sounds amazing.

[00:48:10] Doug Chia: Then I'm like, all right, let me test this. So I'm gonna run the exact same prompts through Perplexity and Gemini. 

[00:48:18] Tim Adair: Sure. 

[00:48:18] Doug Chia: And see what they say. I get three kind of different approaches to, to this. And in the past I've done things that are even more basic, like, okay, what are the, you know, the, the most popular whatever ice cream flavors or something like that.

[00:48:37] Doug Chia: Or, you know, what's the best ice cream out there? And different LLMs give me completely different answers. Like, not even a little bit overlap of like top 10 lists. 

[00:48:50] Tim Adair: Sure, yeah. 

[00:48:51] Doug Chia: Obviously, you know, I'm not using this for decisions where people's lives are affected or businesses, um, you know, uh, stock price is [00:49:00] affected, but I'm confused and I'm like, okay, which one is better?

[00:49:04] Doug Chia: I don't know. Um, and maybe I should just say, okay, you know what, I'm only gonna ask one from now on, because just too many opinions is not a good thing either. Right? So, I don't know. How do you, how do you look at that kind of dilemma? 

[00:49:19] Tim Adair: It's similar to if you, if you went to a search engine and you're gonna search and you're asking like, what are the top flavors for ice cream?

[00:49:28] Tim Adair: Like your example, and you're gonna get a variety of different results, uh, in the search results. And you could click on one and it's gonna tell you one thing. It's kind of the same idea. And a lot, I mean, LLMs are trained on all of that same content. So it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna vary. Um, and I think that in that, if you apply that to conversations that would happen in a board setting, like yeah, you could get different answers or different responses from, [00:50:00] if you're just using a general LLM that's not trained on a specific organization's content could go off in a different direction.

[00:50:08] Tim Adair: And that's where you have to use your own logic to be like, okay, this doesn't make sense. I think the other, the other kind of interesting option would be. You could give the responses, uh, from Gemini to ChatGPT and, and just say like, "Hey, this is what I got over here. Like, tell me like, where did you find this?

[00:50:25] Tim Adair: Like what's this, where did you cite this information from?" And start to get to the source of it. And that's, that's part of what within, uh, OnBoard's AI vision we're trying to get to is like, if, if we can show a response and show where we got it from, citing that response, it's from this document, or it's from this conversation, then you have a bit more to stand on versus just a random answer that came out of who knows where, so. 

[00:50:57] Doug Chia: Yeah. And I always, you know, there's always [00:51:00] these reminders out there. You know, keep, keep in mind that AI could be wrong, right? Not, not necessarily hallucinating, but just coming up with the wrong conclusion and don't always rely on this. And I've actually caught mistakes before. And it's really funny when that happens.

[00:51:21] Doug Chia: Um, 'cause I'm like, wait a second, I don't think this is right. Um, and then I'll even say, well, you said this. I don't think that's correct. Or You missed this. And then they'll come back and say, 

[00:51:34] Tim Adair: oh yeah, 

[00:51:34] Doug Chia: "Uh, yeah, thanks. Good catch." 

[00:51:37] Tim Adair: Yeah, 

[00:51:37] Doug Chia: "I should have thought about that." And I'm just like, oh my gosh, okay. Yeah.

[00:51:41] Doug Chia: This, this thing needs to get better. We're not there yet. 

[00:51:44] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:51:46] Doug Chia: So we were talking about, you know, board members using AI. They come in more prepared, they feel more confident. Um, they, they're more engaged. But we also talked about, you [00:52:00] know, some directors are more tech savvy than others. And so, does this, is there a danger that AI essentially kinda widens the gap between the tech savvy and the non-tech savvy directors?

[00:52:17] Tim Adair: It's, it can create uneven readiness and like we talked about, like there could be, a confidence boost and like, "Hey, I, I've got, like, I know this, this is a summary here of three questions I'm ready to ask." Um, so there could be a, a gap there between some that if they're not using it or not actively trying to use it, um, they could feel behind.

[00:52:42] Tim Adair: And I think that this is an opportunity for organizations and boards to kinda normalize some of these tools and have a shared like best practice like, "Hey, this is the direction we want everyone to go. Here are the tools that you should use, that you're [00:53:00] enabled with. Here's how you should prep." And just guidance, because I think that can go a long way.

[00:53:07] Tim Adair: Specifically if there's a, a specific tool that is baked into a, a board platform, like what we're doing at onboard. Like this is just go and do this and you're gonna be 10 times more effective because you're gonna know what's coming up, you're gonna have questions to ask and you can iterate on it ahead of time or even during the meeting.

[00:53:29] Tim Adair: So I think it's really that, like you could close that gap quickly with the right approach to shared best practices and shared tools. 

[00:53:39] Doug Chia: And so I guess a lot of it comes down to training. 

[00:53:42] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:53:42] Doug Chia: And you know, obviously for your products, you have training, um, in how to use these things. Have you been asked to do training on just AI in general and

[00:53:58] Doug Chia: you know, using the [00:54:00] free tools out for lay people. 

[00:54:03] Tim Adair: We haven't gone down that path. I mean, our, our position has been from the start of when we, um, started rolling out AI features is keep it within the four walls. And even if we're enabling something of use outside of the four walls, it's generated by OnBoard's AI and we have control over it and we know what's happening.

[00:54:26] Tim Adair: Well, our goal is to bring it, bring it into the platform, make sure it's secure, give everybody that guidance and that like foundation to build on. And, um, yeah, I think things will, things will change. Like things, there's, when OpenAI just launched their app store, uh, in December, and so we're looking at is there an opportunity, like this is not just a startup thing.

[00:54:52] Tim Adair: These are, these are big companies that are launching apps in the app store. And is that a spot where 70% [00:55:00] of users are already there, um, of our directors? So maybe we should think about how do we enable that, not just through like a training or a process, but there could be an app that you could call in ChatGPT and it would connect to that secure board portal, be a more scalable way to interact with OnBoard.

[00:55:20] Tim Adair: So those are things that we're looking at and researching and I, I think there'll be lots of unique opportunities ahead of us. 

[00:55:28] Doug Chia: Fascinating stuff. Now I will go back to something that you were saying before in terms of how this is being used, um, and put my lawyer hat on. Um, so, um, you know, I, I used to be a lawyer who kind of, you know, use these tools and, and help board members use them.

[00:55:51] Doug Chia: And now I get questions about this stuff from, you know, other, other lawyers and they talk about, you know, [00:56:00] recording a board meeting. That is kind of the basic example. And I tell them, "Whatever you do, don't do that." Because, um, yes, it might help you take minutes, but it will also be a great, uh, trove of information for a plaintiff's lawyer.

[00:56:20] Doug Chia: And so, I don't know, have you have people been raising this concern with you? How is this being talked about on your side? Because obviously you are creating tools that can do all this stuff. 

[00:56:37] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:56:37] Doug Chia: You know, people don't have to use it, but it can do it and yeah. How, how do you talk about kind of these types of risks?

[00:56:46] Tim Adair: We allow for a wide range of customers, and if they are much more sensitive, they don't have to use these tools. We, and they can be used limited [00:57:00] in a limited fashion. They can go all in that all of the, uh, data retention and how they want to use data over time is, is, can be fully under their control. So what, what we have seen and, and our target is

[00:57:19] Tim Adair: going to be, we're not necessarily targeting the very large enterprise level customers. It's much more like the right down the middle. We have had a very significant progress in, uh, customers, new customers adopting these solutions. And so at the beginning we were trying to test the market and see like, is this gonna be, are we gonna get pushback?

[00:57:44] Tim Adair: But the, the, and specifically around our minutes AI product, which does for a, a remote meeting, a bot joins and it records and you get the full transcript and all of that. So we, we've the [00:58:00] pain that generating minutes, uh was for those admins was quickly overcome by like, yeah, this is pretty interesting and we want to use this.

[00:58:12] Tim Adair: So yes, it has come up and our answer is always like, okay, that's fine. You don't, there's no one's gonna force you. But if you want to simplify your flow, then we can help you. 

[00:58:23] Doug Chia: Like I said, I get asked this a lot and I tell people, okay, some like the, the, the kind of parent company board meeting that's the public company.

[00:58:31] Doug Chia: You don't want to be recording that. 

[00:58:33] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[00:58:34] Doug Chia: And having transcripts and stuff. But there are meetings that are kind of maybe mid-level management meetings that are probably fine because, yeah, you don't have a professional corporate secretary there to take the minutes. You kind of have, uh, whoever, you know, arrived at the meeting last, you know, is the one tagged with, with taking the minutes or you know, guy went to the bathroom, all of a comes back and you're taking the minutes [00:59:00] kind of joke.

[00:59:01] Doug Chia: But yeah, I think it's, you know, it is inevitable. Now, kind of follow up question. You're gonna have the lawyer saying, okay, okay, fine, we can use this to, you know, you, you can record it, you can give us a transcript, we can use it to do the minutes, and then you can make that transcript and recording go away.

[00:59:22] Doug Chia: Right? Like, just wipe it off the face of the earth, right? And, and what do you tell them at that point? 

[00:59:29] Tim Adair: Within our platform that is possible like that, that's all control. So if you think about when I'm referring to the slider, like go, you can, you can do all, all the wide range of the wide range of, yeah, I wanted none of it.

[00:59:44] Tim Adair: I want all of it. I want some of it. And if I record and I get the minutes and then I wanna delete the video because I don't need that. Like all of that is possible. Uh, and, and under the admin's control, so [01:00:00] some of these calls that are, are meetings that are gonna be remote, are recorded on Teams or Zoom or is that more controllable?

[01:00:10] Tim Adair: Is there more control over that or less control? And so it really like conversation with the customer and like, how do you want to control all of this? Is it, is it in a, a Zoom account? Is that. More risk as in a teams account, you wanna just be able to control it within onboard. So these are all, and then kind of depends on the organization and their level of, uh, ability to control that.

[01:00:37] Tim Adair: So... 

[01:00:37] Doug Chia: Yeah. And I guess arguably for you, it's, you have more control or the client will have more control, presumably than, you know, the entire world who's using Zoom or Teams or whatever, where it's uh, 

[01:00:52] Tim Adair: yeah, 

[01:00:53] Doug Chia: yeah, it's risky. You have the Zoom bombing. I don't know if that still happens, but yeah, You have stuff like that.

[01:00:59] Doug Chia: [01:01:00] So in terms of boards, uh, if you could tell 'em like, alright, here, here's something that you should definitely be doing now with Ai, and if you're not, you should really kind of start doing it. What, what would that be? 

[01:01:18] Tim Adair: I think to start with, it's the expectation around what, what is, uh, AI use policy and like, just set those standards.

[01:01:30] Tim Adair: So what are the approved tools? Like, don't do this with data and have an expectation. If there is an expectation to use AI, like what does that mean? And if there is the ability to enable directors with an enterprise license, then there's a more ability to control what is done with training data. So this is now I'm talking about directly to ChatGPT, not through a platform like OnBoard.

[01:01:59] Tim Adair: Um, [01:02:00] so there's, there's those directions. But I, I think just to set this foundation of what's our, what's the AI use policy, like, how are we managing this? And, uh, and, and go from there. 

[01:02:15] Doug Chia: Then if they were to, if you said, if you're doing this, please stop doing it. What would it be? Based on what you've heard or just based on your own instinct of here's what people are probably doing and it's a bad idea.

[01:02:29] Tim Adair: Any unsanctioned consumer AI tools that are out there, like uploading sensitive board material to any of them, that should be a red flag. Like that is, you don't know what's happening behind the scenes. You don't know who could have access to that once it's uploaded. 

[01:02:48] Doug Chia: Yeah, yeah. I'm kind of waiting for the cautionary tales to come out because I don't think we've had them yet.

[01:02:55] Doug Chia: Or that, you know, one court case that at the end of the [01:03:00] day comes out with a result that people. Didn't realize about AI and it's just like, okay, don't be that company. You know? 

[01:03:10] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[01:03:10] Doug Chia: So, but I gotta believe that's gonna happen probably sooner than we, we realize.

[01:03:15] Doug Chia: Final question in terms of after listening to our discussion and whoever's listening a board member, they go back to tell their board, "Hey, I listened to this podcast."

[01:03:29] Doug Chia: Obviously the answer is, "Please go listen to Tim and Doug since they really make a lot of good points." But if, if they don't have the time to do that, what, what would you want the board members telling their colleagues? 

[01:03:43] Tim Adair: I think that there's a great opportunity for directors to take advantage of the tools that are out there today, as long as they are secure and, and are within the right boundaries.

[01:03:54] Tim Adair: Like there's a great advantage, um, for prep and for [01:04:00] gaining knowledge and understanding of unique situations and having insight into how others have solved them. Uh, being able to have an understanding of how topics, thread, thread through different conversations and from meeting to meeting, I think that it's a, it's a unique time and be able to dig in and really, uh, experiment with those tools and I think it's just gonna continue to get better over time.

[01:04:31] Tim Adair: So that, that would be my encouragement to everyone to try that and, and get into the, get into the flow and experiment a little bit and start to understand how, how they can use some of these, uh, AI tools to be more effective. 

[01:04:46] Doug Chia: Yeah, so it's kind of like if, if we're, if we're afraid up until now, we actually should, there's some fear, but that some of that can be managed, but so many opportunities out there.[01:05:00] 

[01:05:00] Doug Chia: That. Yeah. 

[01:05:00] Tim Adair: Yeah. 

[01:05:01] Doug Chia: We should really kind of change our mindset to actually start using it, or at least aspire to use some of this stuff. 

[01:05:07] Tim Adair: Yeah. It's an oppor, it's a very unique opportunity and a very unique time to be able to provide almost a, a, a 10x impact, um, using some of these tools versus, uh, just being, just trying to summarize and, and figure things out on your own.

[01:05:25] Doug Chia: Well, Tim, I think we're gonna wrap up here, but thanks so much for joining today and thank you to OnBoard for sponsoring, uh, the podcast. Really appreciate that. 

[01:05:36] Tim Adair: Thanks, Doug. Great to be here. 

[01:05:38] Doug Chia: So that concludes this episode of The Public Company Series Podcast, powered by OnBoard, and I'd like to thank Tim Adair, the Chief Product Officer of OnBoard for sharing his insights on how AI is already in the boardrooms and shaping how directors do their jobs.

[01:05:58] Doug Chia: So for more [01:06:00] about what we're covering in this season of the Public Company Podcast, I encourage you to check out the companion book Board Structure and Composition, which is part of the Public Company Series published by JP Morgan and the New York Stock Exchange, and you can read and download the entire book at www.nyse.com/pcs.

[01:06:23] Doug Chia: To learn more about OnBoard, visit www.onboardmeetings.com. For additional resources and episodes, visit www.publiccompanyseries.com. And don't forget to subscribe to receive all new episodes of the Public Company Series Podcast. We're on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube. Please rate us and leave a review. I am Doug Ciha, and we will see you next time.