In the digital world,

To successfully adopt and deploy AI, GenAI, and Agentic AI requires starting at the top with the CEO and Board agreeing on the right digital strategy for the company and a game plan to implement it. That is virtually impossible to do if most board members are not digitally savvy.

A recent study published by the Harvard Law School Forum for Corporate Governance found that:

• 66% of boards have limited to no knowledge of AI
• 31% of boards still do not have AI on their board agenda
• 40% are rethinking board composition due to a lack of knowledge about AI

These findings emphasize the necessity for boards to develop and increase their digital technology acumen and AI fluency.

A good place to begin is to measure the digital technology acumen of your board of directors. In my recent work with the Private Directors Association (PDA), we have developed a Digital Technology Acumen Scorecard which gives a company a numerical score between 0 -100 as to their board’s current digital technology acumen. The score is derived from a 30 question self-assessment survey and the results provide an overall score as well as scores in six individual categories, as shown on the slide below:

The value of increasing your board’s digital acumen is verified by an MIT study which identified three critical factors where digitally savvy boards positively impacted the company’s performance:

• Individual board members had an “enterprise level” understanding of digital technology and how it could enable new business models, improve customer experiences and create more efficient operations
• Those companies with three or more digitally savvy directors significantly outperformed companies with fewer than three
• Digitally savvy board members used their knowledge, experience, and insight about technology trends and transformations to help senior business leaders explore “the bigger picture facing the business.”

The other ways companies increased their digital acumen that directly impacted their competitive performance included:

• Establishing a digital technology board committee
• Including digital technology topics on each board agenda
• Having board members make visits to “born-digital” companies and established companies who have successfully deployed digital technology
• Providing digital technology educational tools and continuous learning forums

Successfully adopting & deploying AI starts with data governance

To successfully adopt and deploy AI in all its forms begins with getting your company’s data centralized and easily accessible along with a well-designed data governance program. A 2025 IDC research study documented the following:

Preparing data to yield optimal AI results delivers:

1. 5x higher customer retention
2. 1.6x profit improvement
3. 1.5x operational efficiency
4. 1.2x revenue improvement

By contrast, which has been well documented by multiple studies, the majority of AI, GenAI, and Agentic AI projects over the past three years have failed to make it from pilots to production. Here are some of the major sources of those failures:

• Lack of sufficient quantity of data – AI needs a large amount of good easily accessible data to be trained to learn from it
• Lack of sufficient quality of data – “garbage in, garbage out”
• Underestimating the time and cost of aggregating data from multiple different sources from around the company (sales, marketing, legal, finance, IT, HR, procurement)
• Absence of an enterprise data governance policy and program

To get the most competitive advantage from the successful adoption and deployment of AI requires that you curate the different types and sources of data into one metadata resource. This resource must be easily accessible to your different AI tools while still having guardrails to make sure it is used safely and does not violate privacy or ethical policies.

Building the strategic business case with the board for adopting & deploying AI

Too many companies’ AI, GenAI, and Agentic AI projects are driven by a fear of missing out (FOMO) and being left behind their competitors who are adopting and deploying it in their markets. As I wrote in my January blog fire-aim-ready is not a winning strategy for AI.

Here are some questions to help you build a compelling business case with your board for adopting & deploying AI:

What is the business problem we are trying to solve or the business opportunity we are trying to seize?

• What must AI deliver to achieve that outcome?
• What resources do we need to successfully adopt & scale GenAI & Agentic AI?
• Do we fully understand the costs to move GenAI & Agentic AI pilots into production?
• Do we have the necessary skills and capabilities to effectively manage AI projects?
• What metrics will we use to measure the desired ROI?
• Do we have an enterprise-wide AI and Data governance process in place

Getting the board on board to support the adoption and utilization of AI, GenAI, and Agentic AI is essential for any company that wants to successfully compete as a digital enterprise. Increasing board members knowledge and understanding of the multiple ways it can create business value and impact company performance is a mission critical strategic imperative.

As always, I am interested in your comments, feedback and perspectives on the ideas put forth in this blog. Please email them to me on linkedin. And, if this content could be useful to someone you know, please share it here: