Board directors normally start pondering on possible governance improvements during the beginning of a financial year. We have done a check with a few leaders on what they would like this year in the boardrooms, especially when generative AI is slowly invading most areas of work.
While corporate board members have grown more comfortable with tech tools for meetings and governance oversight, gadgets are still largely patches and add-ons for traditional boardroom work. What’s over the horizon for smart boardroom tech and what should your board add to its current wish list?
‘Work from home’ has given way to what bosses say: ‘get yourselves back to the office’. But this return seems to have stalled. Over the past year, major firms have prodded employees to come back, but passive resistance is strong (such as four-day work week moves). This is driving permanent change in office square footage at lest in the US. JP Morgan Chase trimmed its New York City office footprint by 22 per cent in 2023. However, India has seen growth in office space leasing – From 14 million sq ft in 2019 to 16-million sq ft in Q4 2023 – possibly the shrinking job market held employees back from protesting the back-to-office mandate.
Fewer American employees coming to the office means less need for in-office meeting space (and more use of digital info tools), which will hit boards as well. “Who says boards will even have a space to work at headquarters?” asked one MNC board chair. In your future facilities planning, consider how often you’ll really need a traditional boardroom for a full, onsite board meeting (if at all). We recall how Hindustan Unilever pioneered a Metaverse board session after the Covid days.
So, let’s assume tomorrow’s ‘boardroom’ is a smaller, tech-rich conference centre built for hybrid board sessions. What will it look like? How about a boardroom with a U-shaped table that seats at the most six people, wrapped around a video wall? Or possibly a central-room design, with a big system of high-res cameras in the centre, and everyone around it looking straight ahead? Many firms are already working on some of these concepts. The boardroom and all its fittings are designed first for digital information and collaboration, building less space and travel into the board’s role Indian companies might just like this cost-reduction model.
This compact, wired boardroom won’t work unless all board technology requirements – online meetings, video, audio, board portals, presentations, messaging – blend together, in-room or remotely, and experts see this as being the next demand. Metrigy research finds that 47 per cent of US company conference room systems support just a single meeting app, which makes it difficult to smoothly co-ordinate the boardroom with directors around the world with their remote laptops. This means company tech staff must not only invest in cool new tech, but also assure it works seamlessly across applications and distance. Directors are tired of shouting, ‘can you see/ hear me?’ at video screens.
Another trending buzz term for boardrooms is ‘digital equity’. This means that, as much as possible, remote directors have the same video, audio, information and collaboration experience as those in your on-site techno crib. While this pushes remote board members to upgrade their tech and connections, you can do much with your ‘in-the-boardroom’ tools to even out the experience. We know at least one tech tool provider that offers a suite of conferencing tools, which keep the participants, framed on camera, cut background distractions and filter sound and discussion to target speakers and listeners, both on-site and remotely. The more you nudge in boardroom participants away from old analog tech (group cameras and mikes, actual whiteboards) the more you level up distant directors.
Over the horizon... the experts we spoke with see immersive, virtual reality headsets a bit stalled for boardroom use, awaiting further tech breakthroughs. Still, audio and video transcription tools will not only minute board sessions, but also use AI technology to highlight key points for directors’ focus. These will also let a director skip out of the meeting and summarise what was missed, like your digital OTT programmes.
This leads to tech apps that will help make board books info more digestible. There are some new platforms like the Zeck that make board decks more manageable, help staff edit meeting decks and lets directors annotate and ask questions before the meeting. Further, AI tech that summarise board data and high points, and generate a CEO summary, are already in use by some early adapters.