This week I spent an evening among directors at the Institute of Directors’ Directors Connect, held on 9 November at Foxhills Country Club near Chertsey. It was an informal gathering, but one that left me both inspired and energised.
What stood out most for me was the evening’s talk on the role of the director. Its central point was the need to understand how the organisation is really doing, in the real world rather than in the board pack. The speaker’s example, from a non-executive role in a care home setting, was to check the quality of the coffee and the slippers. It chimed with my own experience in industry: you only truly understand the quality of your products and services by walking in your customers’ shoes and seeing how they show up for real people, in real time.
My conversations through the evening ranged widely, from digital marketing and measurement in the AI age, to the future of work and modern approaches to directorship, right through to Foxhills’ charitable work in the local community.
And, of course, no gathering these days is complete without an AI story. For me, the key takeaway in this arena was the speaker’s account of an AI serving as a non-executive director. Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, Samruk-Kazyna, appointed an AI system called SKAI to its board in 2025, complete with voting rights.
It is a striking example of AI moving beyond productivity tools into roles traditionally held solely by humans. We talk a lot about keeping a “human in the loop”. Here, it is closer to an AI in the loop: a serving board member directing, and voting, amongst human colleagues.
This example also points to the governance questions I keep returning to. Every AI agent needs an identity, an owner and a limit. Supporters see an AI director as a step towards more transparent, data-driven decisions; sceptics have called it a publicity stunt. Either way, when an AI has a vote at board level, who owns its judgement, and who is accountable for the outcome? Every board will need an answer to this question at some stage, and likely sooner than many expect.
Foxhills Country Club, Surrey
