This article originally appeared in our November 20th edition of the Diligent Minute Newsletter. For more insights like these, delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe

Boards in transition: Why active, data-driven governance is the 2026 imperative

Boards entered 2025 facing rising heightened risk, economic volatility, and an urgent mandate to modernize oversight. We recently hosted Diligent’s Elevate Leadership Summit, a by-invitation event where corporate directors, executives and leading experts gathered for candid, Chatham House Rule-style discussions on today’s challenges and the future of corporate governance.

Top Board Governance Trends for 2026: Active, Data‑Driven Oversight

Across sessions, a clear throughline emerged: the most effective boards are shifting from passive oversight to active, data-driven governance with disciplined processes and human judgment at the center. Here’s what our expert speakers and experienced director attendees had to say about the trends to watch in 2026:

From passive to active GRC, augmented by AI

Active GRC is replacing passive oversight as directors confront increasing risk and low confidence in near-term conditions. 

Speakers urged leaders to augment teams with AI agent

s to handle foundational tasks and “ask the next question,” freeing capacity for strategy amid resource constraints. The shift isn’t about automation for the sake of it; it’s about using technology to strengthen discipline, improve foresight and increase resiliency in governance processes.

AI governance: Measure what people actually do

The biggest AI risk isn’t only technical, it’s invisible usage

. Effective AI governance should incorporate real usage metrics

, not just periodic sentiment surveys, so boards and management can see where tools are actively embedded in work and where shadow adoption may be creating risk. Pair cultural encouragement (safe experimentation and knowledge sharing) with “lighthouse” projects that prove measurable value, building confidence while establishing standards that scale.

Culture oversight is expanding and needs better data

Board oversight of culture has outgrown legacy tools as public trust shifts towards employers and brands, and employees increasingly make choices based on societal values. Activism is rising, yet many boards still haven’t addressed company stances on social issues. Leaders discussed responsibly tapping a broader range of anonymized, unstructured data, such as employee intranet messages and chat activity, to surface actionable insights, while ensuring that individual employees aren’t singled out or penalized for raising concerns.

Board Priorities and Next Steps for 2026 and Beyond

The year ahead will reward boards that turn judgement into action: clear crisis protocols, richer data streams on people and culture, pragmatic compensation strategies, and stepwise AI adoption grounded in how employees actually use it. The common denominator is disciplined curiosity. The best directors will ask sharper questions, measure what matters and adapt faster.

If these insights resonate with your board or leadership team, start with a structured review of your speak-up mechanisms, succession playbooks, culture data sources and AI governance metrics to ensure they match today’s pace of change. Then, pick one “lighthouse” initiative to prove value within the next two quarters — and use what you learn to scale.

 to dive deeper and benchmark your board’s readiness for 2026 and beyond.

In a growing suburban school district, administrators introduce a new dropout prevention initiative, fueled by artificial intelligence. The analytics tool was designed to identify students at risk of falling behind academically. The tool collects data from attendance records, grades and even disciplinary issues to flag students who might need additional academic support.

The advantages of the new system seem clear at first: Teachers can intervene earlier, helping reduce the dropout rate and improving academic achievement for students. However, as the AI system begins generating recommendations, questions arise.

Teachers notice that the tool disproportionately flags students from lower income neighborhoods. Parents wonder about how their children’s personal information is being used and stored. The school board begins to understand that they need a clear process for evaluating the AI model’s fairness, transparency and alignment with community values.

The district’s leaders face a dilemma: how do they balance innovation with ethical responsibility? How do they ensure that their use of AI improves outcomes 

 perpetuating inequities or undermining public trust?

 and city governments to healthcare systems — are turning to AI to increase efficiency, predict needs and make better decisions. But as these tools grow more sophisticated, they also raise difficult questions about accountability, bias and oversight.

The question for today’s public leaders is no longer 

Board management software like Diligent Community helps public sector organizations create and sustain 

governance structures for responsible AI oversight

 to make public services more efficient and responsive. Yet without guardrails and guidelines, AI can pose risks to organizations that can erode public confidence and amplify inequities.

 AI models can reflect societal or data-driven biases, which, if not recognized, lead to unfair decisions and treatment.

 The internal workings of AI systems are often difficult to understand, even for their creators. This makes it difficult for officials and citizens to understand how AI comes to its conclusions.

 When AI influences critical decisions — such as student placement, benefits eligibility or hiring — it must be clear who is responsible for those decisions.

 The vast amount of sensitive data in the hands of public entities makes ethical and secure data use essential.

To address these risks, school boards and 

 must create AI governance guidelines with clear policies, processes and oversight procedures that ensure ethical use of these new technologies. But doing so requires the right tools to operate and monitor them effectively.

Lead responsible AI use in education. Download our guide for key principles, ethical strategies, privacy best practices, and monitoring tools.

Navigate AI governance easily

. Board management software like Diligent Community enables public sector organizations to place ethical principles into everyday processes.

With Diligent Community, organizations can:

Diligent Community provides a structured environment where boards can adopt AI governance checklists and guidelines. From early planning to operation and review, every decision and document can be captured in one secure, accessible place.

The Policy Publisher feature helps manage the entire lifecycle of AI-related policies, from creation and digital voting to adoption and publication. Version control and history tracking provide a clear audit trail, reinforcing accountability and compliance.

AI programs evolve rapidly. Diligent Community’s tools allow boards to document and track AI-related discussions, decisions and results. Agendas and minutes are stored in the document library, making it easy to measure progress, revisit past decisions and demonstrate accountability.

Annotation tools such as highlights, sticky notes and private comments enable members to stay engaged and prepared for discussions on AI ethics and oversight.

Public trust is built on visibility. Diligent Community’s Livestream Manager empowers organizations to stream meetings on their public websites alongside agendas and supporting documents. Meetings can be recorded and paired with time-stamped minutes, allowing members of the public to identify discussions around AI oversight.

AI-assisted minutes can also be generated quickly from livestream transcripts, ensuring accuracy and saving administrative time.

The platform’s public website integration ensures compliance with open meeting laws and ADA requirements, offering transparent access to agendas, policies and past decisions — while keeping data secure.

Align AI use with organizational goals and community values

AI initiatives should always reflect the organization’s mission and community values. Diligent Community supports this by streamlining communication and decision-making. Secure updates, tracked approvals and custom workflows help ensure that AI decisions and outcomes are documented and aligned with board goals and objectives.

Support onboarding and continuous learning

Ethical AI governance is an ongoing process. Diligent Community’s centralized document library simplifies the onboarding of new trustees and staff, ensuring that training materials, governance policies and reference documents are readily available. A powerful search function allows users to quickly access relevant information, reducing time wasted hunting through emails or outdated files.

Diligent Community is designed for the public sector, helping boards and administrators lead with integrity and transparency. Its cloud-based design, secure servers and 256-bit encryption ensure that sensitive discussions and documents remain fully protected.

Diligent Community helps public entities:

Implement and monitor AI governance frameworks.

Document and track decisions with transparency.

Align AI initiatives with community goals and ethics.

AI offers promise to improving public services but only when guided by strong ethical governance. As organizations navigate the challenges of implementing AI responsibly, Diligent Community provides the tools and structure to lead with transparency, accountability and trust.

By combining technology with ethical leadership, public sector boards can ensure that AI serves the public good — fairly, responsibly and in agreement with community values.

 to explore how Diligent Community can help your organization strengthen ethical AI governance.

How public boards can develop better AI governance with smarter tech

Ten insights shaping boards in the year ahead

Boards entered 2025 facing rising risk, economic volatility, and an urgent mandate to modernize oversight. At Diligent, we recently hosted the Elevate Leadership Summit, a by‑invitation gathering of corporate directors and executives alongside a curated set of experts, for confidential, Chatham House Rule-style discussions to dissect these issues and look to the future of corporate governance.

Across sessions, a clear through‑line emerged: the most effective boards are shifting from moving from passive oversight to active, data‑driven governance with disciplined processes and human judgment at the center. Here’s what our expert speakers and experienced director attendees had to say about the trends to watch out for in 2026:

1) From passive to active GRC—augmented by AI

Active GRC is replacing passive oversight as directors confront increasing risk and low confidence in near‑term conditions. Speakers suggested augmenting teams with AI agents to handle foundational tasks and “ask the next question,” freeing leaders to focus on strategy amid resource constraints.

2) AI governance: Measure what people actually do 

The biggest AI risk isn’t only technical, it’s invisible usage. AI governance should incorporate real usage metrics, not just periodic sentiment surveys, and pair cultural encouragement (safe experimentation and knowledge‑sharing) with “lighthouse” projects that prove measurable value to employees and shareholders.

3) Culture oversight is expanding and needs better data

Board oversight of culture has outgrown legacy tools. Public trust continues to concentrate on employers and brands, and employees increasingly make choices based on societal beliefs. Activism is rising, and many boards still haven’t discussed company stances on social issues. Our speakers discussed the possibility of utilizing a broader range of anonymized unstructured data - such as employee intranet messages and chat data - into decisio useful insights, while ensuring individual employees aren’t being singled out or retaliated against for escalating concerns.

4) AI literacy and security remain non‑negotiable

Boards need AI literacy and strong cyber foundations; there’s no leapfrogging weak security into trustworthy AI. Keep a human in the loop, test for bias systematically (using available benchmarks), and consider experimenting with smaller models and improved licensing terms where they fit the use case and data‑governance needs.

Early red flags require pre‑defined protocols, not improvisation. The first 72 hours following a crisis event should trigger escalation playbooks, evidence preservation (including email freezes), independent counsel where appropriate, and non‑retaliation toward whistleblowers, all paired with board‑level visibility and documented independence.

Continuous monitoring (increasingly AI‑enabled) can surface fraud risk indicators earlier, narrowing the expectation gap around what audit and compliance actually do.

6) Speak‑up culture is a strategic asset

A speak‑up culture with higher hotline usage is a positive signal, but only if organizations close the loop, protect anonymity, and report metrics to the board. Leaders should be encouraged to normalize and celebrate reporting, which reduces fear and builds trust across the enterprise.

7) Board-executive dynamics are shifting under scrutiny

Executives are pushing for director refreshment, and more of them see boards overstepping compared to last year. Meanwhile, CEO turnover is up, with most U.S. departures described as unplanned. These themes raise the premium on preparedness, role clarity, and disciplined engagement between boards and management.

8) Succession planning must be continuous and robust 

Effective succession planning should be continuous and discussed at every meeting, with directors knowing the pipeline at least one level down and preparing for unexpected transitions – including mission-critical roles beyond the CEO.

The board chair’s (or independent lead director’s) role in tone‑setting and inclusion is pivotal. Boards can benefit greatly from periodic third‑party evaluations to raise effectiveness.

9) Executive compensation is evolving amid volatility

Executive compensation committees are recalibrating discretion, which allows boards to award compensation based not only on results, but qualitative assessment. COVID‑era lessons showed shareholders tolerate discretion in executive compensation when the rationale is strong and disclosure is clear.

Executive security as part of the compensation package is rising as a governance and risk issue; Policy and regulatory discussions happening at the SEC point to potentially simpler disclosures as early as the 2027 proxy season, while state‑level rules are reshaping proxy‑advisor practices.

10) Better questions and diverse composition strengthen oversight

Directors who ask, “What do I need to understand?” and “Do I have all the information?” sharpen risk oversight. Building formal and informal trusted channels with audit and compliance leaders can improve signal quality, while targeted training helps boards recognize fraud indicators. Evidence that boards with a broader range of perspectives are more effective highlights the value of having a well-balanced and diverse composition.

The year ahead will reward boards that operationalize judgment: clear protocols for crises, richer data streams on people and culture, pragmatic approaches to compensation, and step‑wise AI adoption that starts with the reality of how employees are using it. The common denominator is disciplined curiosity. The best directors will ask better questions, measure what matters, and adapt faster.

If these insights resonate with your board or leadership team, consider a structured review of your speak‑up mechanisms, succession playbooks, culture data sources, and AI governance metrics to ensure they’re meeting today’s pace of change. Then, pick one “lighthouse” initiative to prove value within the next two quarters and use the learning to scale.

Note: The Elevate Leadership Summit is an annual, by‑invitation gathering of corporate directors and CEOs, alongside a curated set of experts, for confidential, Chatham House Rule-style panel discussions.

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Boards in transition: Why active, data-driven governance is the 2026 imperative

How public boards can develop better AI governance with smarter tech

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