AI can’t write your board deck

Since ChatGPT arrived, I have alternated between mild panic that my career might be over and relief that it’s not.

It is apparently very good at several things I specialise in.

It’s great at fixing grammar. It’s great at researching. It’s great at summarizing.

Oh dear.

What will we humans – me in particular – actually be for in this new world?

Good news.

AI has both wonderful potential and significant limitations.

Before I get to the details, I have three things to catch you up on:

• Two new Board Paper Bootcamps are open, scheduled for different time zones. October suits Europe and Asia as well as Australians looking for an after-work option. November suits Australian and US participants best. More here.
• Responses to the feedback feature in my revised Engage course are great. I have been testing Engage with a corporate group, and they love the new discussion feature. It enables them to complete exercises and receive feedback from me. Check it out here.
• Cutting Through episode with communication expert, Paul Ichilcik is worth a listen. I asked my AI ‘friend’ to help me identify topics for future emails from this, and it was looooong. Check it out on your favourite player, or here.

AI can’t (yet!) write your board deck

Sorry, but so far, at least, it’s true.

Mind you, I did have a moment earlier this week when I saw a new board portal that included AI.

Let’s unpack what is going on here so we can get the most out of AI while putting it in perspective.

AI can summarize the material it’s given but can’t connect the dots between that information and your situation.

Only you can synthesize.

So, when AI pulls out the key ideas from a board report, that summary is only as good as two things:

• The quality of the information in the original report
• That particular AI’s ability to summarize without hallucinating.

Imagine this.

Leadership submits a report that contains a lot of useful information but doesn’t get to the crux of the strategic imperative behind their request.

Several review cycles later, inconsistencies in the background facts have also appeared as edits aren’t carried through consistently.

The leaders know what they want to say but haven’t yet crystalized it properly for themselves.

They might get there after a while in conversation, but it isn’t in the report.

Enter AI.

The tool summarizes the key points in the report pretty well, hallucinating no more than a human might.

Board members are rushing their preparation because the papers arrived late, so rely on the summaries.

What does this do to the conversation around the table?

Does the discussion tease out the real underbelly of the strategic issues?

Maybe.

• Is the board relying on impaired information? Definitely.
• Who is responsible then if a decision goes south?
• What will the regulator say?

Leads to an interesting challenge, doesn’t it?

So, as much as AI can be very helpful in all sorts of ways (I use it daily), the higher-order thinking is still up to us.

It remains up to us to use our judgment.

I’d love your thoughts on this.

Davina

Elevate, the book – helps leaders set their teams up to set up a new dynamic across their team that will elevate everyone’s skills, helping the team get better, faster decisions.

Engage, the book – helps individual contributors prepare papers and presentations that leaders can approve without reworking.

Engage, the self-paced course  – supports both individuals and leaders prepare more insightful papers and presentations for senior leaders and boards.

Extreme Clarity, the 2-hour workshop – introduces techniques for structuring your messaging.

Board Paper Bootcamp, the 2-week program – helps you clarify and convey complex ideas to senior leaders and boards.

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