Elevating Board Governance Through AI Posture and Archetypes

McKinsey (Dec 4, 2025) "The AI reckoning: How boards can evolve" frames AI as a board-level priority with existential implications for many companies and lays out four board AI archetypes shaped by two dimensions: source of value (new products and revenue streams vs optimising the existing business) and degree of adoption (embedded enterprise-wide vs selective high-ROI use). Two archetypes named explicitly: business pioneers, who use AI to create new markets and models, and internal transformers, who push operating-model changes across multiple functions. Boards must understand data moats, regulatory exposure and whether leadership can run an AI-driven business. For SEA mid-market boards, the archetype choice is itself the strategy conversation.