Digitally Savvy Boards: AI Update

Research Briefing Vol. XXV, No. 3, published 20 March 2025 by Weill, Woerner, Banner and Moore, based on a machine learning analysis of 2,788 publicly traded US companies with over USD 1 billion in 2024 revenues, 28,779 director bios, 162 keywords, Wharton Research Data Services data from the start of 2021 through Q1 2024, BoardEx committee data for 906 of those companies and twelve board member interviews. Companies with boards that were both digitally and AI savvy had an average return on equity 10.9 percentage points above industry average against minus 3.8 percentage points for the 74 per cent with non-savvy boards, and a board qualifies only at three or more savvy directors, with the authors reporting no statistically significant performance premium for digital savviness alone in 2024. The figure source line under Exhibit 1 states 2,500 firms and 20 interviews while the methodology footnote states 2,788 firms and twelve interviews, and that discrepancy must be disclosed with the figure.