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Bots in the Boardroom
When I talk to bank executives about technology, the excitement about generative AI is palpable. Indeed, in Bank Director’s 2025 Technology Survey, 62% of respondents said their bank had begun experimenting with artificial intelligence in limited use cases.
But that excitement isn’t translating into widespread boardroom usage. In Bank Director’s forthcoming 2026 Governance Best Practices Survey, only 22% of respondents say their bank used AI or automation to transcribe board discussions, and the same percentage used it to compile board materials. Twenty-six percent used it to prepare meeting minutes.
Why aren’t more boards using AI to make governance processes more efficient? This week, Bank Director’s banking and fintech editor, Greg Neumann, wrote an article about banks that are using AI in the boardroom. But there are legal and regulatory considerations of inviting a bot into sensitive discussions. Beyond the security concerns of who has access to confidential information, some attorneys advise banks to make no audio recordings of board meetings at all and to destroy all notes or transcriptions after the board votes to approve the official minutes. Plaintiffs’ attorneys or regulators could collect minutes and recordings as part of a lawsuit or enforcement action, for example.
Certainly, some are using AI to help prepare materials for the board. Commerce Bancshares’ CFO Charles “Chuck” Kim told me a few weeks ago that the $36 billion bank in Kansas City, Missouri, used AI to help prepare summaries of analyst commentary for the board. “Now our board can read a two-page summary instead of plowing through a hundred-plus pages of analyst reports,” he says.
But for now, even tech-forward banks such as Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati are more likely to use AI inside the bank than the boardroom. “AI has a role almost everywhere in our business, and we're disciplined about where and how we use it,” wrote Christian Gonzalez, the company’s executive vice president and chief legal counsel, in response to a question from Bank Director. “The boardroom is one place we've drawn a deliberate line, not because of any single consideration, but because our directors' judgment and experience are what our most important strategic decisions require. We want that conversation to be a human one.”
• Naomi Snyder, editor-in-chief for Bank Director
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