Implementation Kit
Board AI Literacy Curriculum and Self-Assessment Templates
Building enough AI literacy at board level for real oversight. A curriculum outline tied to the company's own AI risks, an annual board briefing template that is context, not operations, a director self-assessment, and criteria for choosing an external educator.
Who this is for: The company secretary, general counsel, or chair building the board's AI oversight capacity.
1. Director AI literacy curriculum outline
SpreadsheetTopics, depth, and how each connects to the specific AI risks this company runs.
Template
| Topic | Depth for directors | Connection to our AI risks |
|---|---|---|
| What AI can and cannot do (capabilities and limits) | conceptual | which of our decisions rely on it |
| How AI systems fail (bias, drift, hallucination, brittleness) | conceptual + examples | our people-affecting and customer-facing systems |
| The regulatory landscape | working knowledge of the regimes we are in | EU AI Act, US state law, sector rules for our sectors |
| Governance and oversight structures | working knowledge | our committee, three-lines model, reporting |
| Reading an AI risk report | practical | our board dashboard and thresholds |
| Escalation and crisis | practical | our escalation register and incident types |
Worked example
Tailoring for our board (AI in hiring and fraud decisions, both people-affecting and regulated).
| Topic | How we tailored it |
|---|---|
| How AI fails | leads with a bias case study built from our own adverse-impact history, anonymised |
| Regulatory landscape | covers only the EU AI Act, Colorado SB205, NYC LL144, and fair-lending analogues, not a global survey |
| Reading an AI risk report | uses our actual board dashboard and thresholds |
Acceptance criteria
- ✓Every topic states the depth expected of a director, not a practitioner.
- ✓Each topic is connected to a specific AI risk the company actually carries.
- ✓The curriculum uses the company's own systems and reports as teaching material.
2. Board AI briefing template
DocumentAn annual context-setting session, deliberately separate from the quarterly operational report.
Template
Once a year, 60-90 minutes. Sets context, not status.
- Where AI sits in the strategy: what the company is betting on AI for, and the exposure that creates
- The risk landscape: how AI risk is evolving for our industry and jurisdictions
- Our governance model: how it works, what the board sees and decides, what it does not
- Two or three deep dives: a real system, a real incident or near-miss, a real regulatory change, explained fully
- What good oversight looks like: the questions directors should be asking management
- Open discussion
Worked example
2026 annual board AI briefing:
- Strategy: AI is core to the hiring and fraud products; ~30% of revenue touches an AI-influenced decision.
- Landscape: risk-based regulation spreading from the EU to US states; enforcement focus on hiring and lending.
- Model: committee under Risk; board sees a quarterly dashboard and any Sev-1; board approves risk appetite annually.
- Deep dives: (1) the resume screener end to end; (2) the September support-copilot data near-miss; (3) the EU AI Act high-risk deadline move.
- Questions to ask management: "which systems are High-tier and are they all assessed?", "what is our worst plausible AI incident and are we ready for it?", "where are we behind on a regulatory deadline?"
Acceptance criteria
- ✓The briefing is context and education, held separately from operational reporting.
- ✓It includes deep dives on real systems, incidents, and regulatory changes.
- ✓It gives directors specific questions to ask management.
3. Director AI literacy self-assessment
SpreadsheetA short questionnaire to find gaps and track progress, done privately by each director.
Template
| Statement | Confident / Somewhat / Not |
|---|---|
| I can explain, at a high level, how the company's main AI systems make decisions | |
| I understand the main ways AI systems fail and which of ours are exposed | |
| I know which AI regulations the company is subject to and the key deadlines | |
| I understand how AI risk is governed and what the board decides | |
| I can read our AI risk dashboard and tell whether the picture is good or bad | |
| I know what would trigger an escalation to the board and what we would do | |
| I know the questions to ask management about AI risk |
Worked example
Aggregated and anonymised across 8 directors, 2026.
| Statement | Confident | Somewhat | Not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explain how our AI makes decisions | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| Ways AI fails and our exposure | 2 | 5 | 1 |
| Regulations and key deadlines | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| Read the risk dashboard | 4 | 3 | 1 |
Gaps to address in the curriculum: regulation, and failure modes. Repeat after the annual briefing.
Acceptance criteria
- ✓Results are aggregated and anonymised, used to shape the curriculum, not to grade individuals.
- ✓The assessment is repeated to show progress over time.
- ✓Low-confidence areas map to specific curriculum modules.
4. External educator selection criteria
SpreadsheetHow to choose an outside educator, and what a good one looks like.
Template
| Criterion | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| Board-level experience | has taught directors, not just executives or engineers |
| Independence | no conflict (not selling the company AI tools or audit services) |
| Tailoring | will build the session around our systems and risks, not a stock deck |
| Regulatory currency | current on the regimes we face, with primary-source knowledge |
| Practical framing | teaches the questions to ask, not just concepts |
| References | directors at comparable companies who can speak to impact |
Worked example
Shortlist evaluation.
| Candidate | Assessment | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| A | strong board experience; stock deck only; would not tailor | pass |
| B | tailors; current on EU and US rules; references check out; independent | selected for the 2026 briefing |
| C | excellent, but also pitching us an assurance engagement | conflict; declined |
Acceptance criteria
- ✓The educator has taught at board level and will tailor to the company's systems.
- ✓There is no conflict of interest (not selling related products or services).
- ✓References from directors at comparable companies were checked.
Governance controls this kit produces evidence for
Completing the artifacts above gives you a head start on the evidence requirements for these controls.
The curriculum and self-assessment are the director AI literacy and competency assessment.
The briefing reinforces the board's role and decision rights under the committee charter.
Teaching directors to read the risk dashboard strengthens board risk reporting and escalation.
Director literacy is one dimension of the governance maturity assessment.
This kit backs one playbook. Read the full guidance for the reasoning behind each artifact.
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