AI in the Boardroom: What Directors Need to Know Now

(0:00) About the Boardroom Governance Summit (Aug 26-27, 2026)  (0:55) Intro (2:44) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel. (3:30) Start of interview.  (4:16) Origin story Marie Bafus (5:30) Origin story Wendy Grasso (7:34) Diving into their article AI in the Boardroom: What Directors Need to Know Now (4:14) Why AI Needs Board Oversight (12:00) Caremark and Oversight Duties (15:12) Mission-Critical Risk Cases. Reference to Marchand case (2019) and Boeing case (2021) (19:18) Where AI Belongs in Governance (board level and board committees) (21:28) Defining Mission-Critical AI (24:45) Strategy, Capital Allocation, and Judgment (29:50) Board Minutes as Litigation Evidence (33:52) Private Companies, Same Duties (38:35) AI Washing and Disclosure Risks (43:10) How Boards (and Board Members) Can Use AI (47:08) Hallucinations, Confidentiality, and Privilege. Reference to U.S. v Heppner case (2026) (52:03) Building an AI Usage Policy (53:36) Recording Boards with AI (note taking apps) (57:05) Workforce Trust and Environmental Risk (1:00:00) AI for Oversight Itself (1:02:02) AI’s Impact on Legal Practice Marie Bafus is a partner in Fenwick’s Securities Litigation Practice and Wendy Grasso is counsel in Fenwick’s Corporate Practice. You can follow Evan on social media at:Website: boardroom-governance.comX: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BoardroomGovernance__To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License