How to harness AI for more efficient and effective board pack preparation
During a board meeting, a well-crafted board pack is the star of the show: preparing directors to make informed contributions, guiding discussions where they need to go and facilitating decisive next steps.
In the busy days leading up to the meeting, however, finalizing board packs can become a brutally stressful race against time. Behind-the-scenes players like you are wrangling disparate data, refining content and burning the midnight oil to get it all together, get it done and get it right.
For corporate secretaries, general counsel and board administrators, purpose-built artificial intelligence (AI) tools offer a magic wand to simplify the pack-prep process, simplifying manual tasks and making the end product more effective.
How exactly does this all work? What makes AI such an indispensable governance tool? Read on for specifics, including a real-world example of AI-powered board packs in action.
Meeting prep’s most important — and laborious — tasks
Think back on the process, and pain points, involved in preparing your latest board pack.
You’re manually poring through reams of past minutes and documents, determining that you need to update. And then you’re chasing down data from multiple sources, with multiple time-consuming gentle (and sometimes less-than-gentle!) reminders.
You’re whittling content down to only the most salient points, often running on too little sleep amid multiple distractions. You’re tinkering away on formatting and squandering pre-meeting minutes on double-checking, manual cross-referencing and the logistics of distribution, losing time that should be spent on strategy and the bigger picture. All of these inefficiencies add up.
You end up spending too much time on the wrong things, like manual tasks that could be digitized and automated. Meanwhile, out-of-date information and inaccuracies risk slipping through the cracks.
Surely there must be an easier way of delivering board members the updates, insights and clarity they need to make smart decisions.
AI feels — and tackles — your pain
One of AI’s biggest superpowers for governance professionals is its ability to quickly produce context-driven content summaries. Picture the instantaneous AI summaries you see at the top of an online search, only larger and much more sophisticated.
With Diligent Boards' AI Board Book Summary application, it's now possible — providing your board members with quick-read, cross-referenced takeaways for everything on the meeting agenda, from performance metrics to pending regulations, all in the click of button.
This capability works in a text-to-speech format, too, turning your board pack into your board members' new favorite podcast that they can use to prep for meetings on the go (whether on a plane or train, at the gym or even when walking the dog).
Beyond the substantial benefit of content summarization, such purpose-built AI delivers more tools even the most tech-averse members of your board can appreciate.
AI-powered governance software can conduct an intelligent analysis of board pack content, for example, automatically generating targeted questions for board discussions. And automatically generated citations throughout keep page-flipping and scrolling to a minimum during meetings.
Meanwhile, automated tracking keeps time-sensitive activities like investment reviews, roadshow materials, registration filings and reports moving quickly, and AI-generated action items turn shorthand notes and meeting materials into next steps and deliverables.
But what about the behind-the-scenes plight of administratively burdened corporate secretaries, general counsel and administrators?
Diligent AI assists at every stage leading up to the end product as well, with transparency, security and accountability built in:
- Analyzing past content for information that needs to be updated
- Automatically (and intelligently) collecting metrics, measures and other raw data across filings, earnings transcripts, historical minutes and more
- Automatically requesting information from specific teams, partners and departments
- Generating concise narratives based on a context-driven analysis of these compiled materials
- Facilitating collaborative reviews with continuous integration, including automated version control and personalized briefings on changes
AI-enabled board packs in action at ELCO
As general counsel and corporate secretary, Eric Myers handles board packs — and much more — at ELCO Mutual, an insurance provider managing more than a billion dollars in assets. Using Diligent's AI-powered board management software has freed up valuable time in his schedule.
“I used to spend maybe a day or two preparing for board meetings with the old system. Now with Diligent, it’s maybe an hour or two,” said Myers.
Meeting documents at ELCO can run to 150 pages or more. But with the software's AI Board Book Summary tool, Myers was able to generate concise overviews at the click of a button. “It basically summarizes everything, and I can pull out the bits and pieces that I need,” he said. “Having something that tells the board, ‘Hey, this is where you need to go, this is what you should focus on,’ is very helpful.”
The new summaries had a substantial impact: directors’ engagement rose, and meeting dynamics improved as board members were more prepared and informed, leading to faster, more effective decision-making.
“I can tell much better than I used to how prepared people are,” said Myers, “just based on how the meetings go.”
Read the full case study to discover how ELCO Mutual leveraged AI-powered governance technology to modernize its boardroom operations.
Powerful benefits across the board
For those in Myers’ shoes preparing board packs, AI amps up efficiency, with streamlined processes that shift time from manual tasks and logistics to more strategic work.
For the executives and directors using the new board packs, added features like smart summaries and automated citations enable more effective preparation, helping them arrive at meetings ready to engage, contribute and make future-focused, data-driven decisions. And across the board and governance team, AI enhances accuracy and accountability, with automation that reduces errors and ensures follow-through.
Incorporating AI into board management is not just about keeping pace with technology, but also about transforming the way we approach governance. With AI, boards can work smarter, not harder, focusing more time on strategic decision-making that drives success.
Ready to explore how purpose-built AI can transform your board management? Request a demo of our AI-powered board management platform today.
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