Free one-page template for owners, CEOs and boards
AI Board Briefing template: the agenda and the ten questions
When a board asks for the AI plan, most companies answer with a list of tools. A board wants something else: an agenda it can run in one sitting and a few plain questions. This one page is both. Print it, send the questions ahead, and write a name next to each item before anyone leaves the room.
- The agenda: seven items for a 90-minute board or leadership session, in order, with the minutes for each
- The ten questions a board should ask about AI, in a board member's own words, one line each
- The rule for leaving the room: a name next to every item and a date for the next report
- How to use it in four sentences, including what to send the board before the session
The template is Darren Weiss's own, from the business side of integrations as COO and then President of a public company that closed more than 40 acquisitions. It is a business tool, not legal, tax, accounting or investment advice.
A look inside
The ten questions, as a board member would ask them
- Who in the company already uses AI tools, and for what?
- What customer or pricing data has gone into a tool we did not approve?
- Who owns the AI question after today?
- What would we never let a machine do alone?
- What did the last pilot cost, and what did it change?
- Which vendor contracts now include AI features, and who reads them?
- How would a buyer or lender read our answer?
- What is the first piece of work, and who runs it?
- What will we see next quarter?
- What should we stop?
The template holds the questions and the agenda, not the answers. What a good answer to each looks like is on the questions your board will ask about AI.