Digitally Savvy Boards: AI Update

MIT CISR

Stephanie Woerner reads MIT CISR's March 2025 research briefing, which she co-authored with Peter Weill, Jennifer S. Banner, and James Moore. See the text version and related content at https://cisr.mit.edu/publication/2025_0301_SavvyBoardsUpdate_WeillWoernerBannerMoore Abstract: In 2019, MIT CISR published findings from our research on the digital savviness of company boards that showed 24 percent of boards were digitally savvy and had associated performance premiums. In 2024, we repeated the 2019 board analysis with current companies and found that having a digitally savvy board based on our original criteria was no longer differentiating. However, updating the criteria to account for newer technologies produced results similar to the original analysis. In this briefing we compare the results of these two studies, share insights from interviews of non-executive board directors, and explore how companies use board committees to help manage their work.