What non-executive directors, audit committee chairs, and senior executives need to know to discharge their oversight responsibilities on AI.
Who this is for
- Non-executive directors and board members
- Audit and risk committee chairs
- CEOs and CFOs whose organisations are deploying AI
- Company secretaries preparing board papers on AI
What you will be able to do
- Ask the right questions of management on AI strategy, risk, and compliance
- Read an AI risk report and know what “good” looks like
- Understand the personal and corporate liability landscape
- Structure board and committee time on AI proportionate to risk
- Recognise the failure modes in AI governance that most often reach the board
Syllabus
Each module comprises a mix of structured reading, worked examples, and applied exercises. Every programme concludes with an integrated written assessment marked against the published rubric.
Module 1. What the board is really being asked to oversee
The distinction between AI opportunity oversight and AI risk oversight. What the regulator, the shareholder, and the plaintiff will each expect.
Module 2. The risk landscape at board level
The five categories of AI risk boards should track. Materiality thresholds.
Module 3. Duties and liability
Directors’ duties applied to AI decisions. Personal exposure. The emerging case law and enforcement direction.
Module 4. Reading the reports
What a good AI governance dashboard looks like. Signals of trouble in a management report.
Module 5. Questions to ask
A structured question bank for board, audit committee, risk committee, and remuneration committee.
Module 6. When to escalate
Recognising the “call the special meeting” situations. AI-related crisis oversight patterns.
Assessment
Brief
Draft the AI governance section of your organisation’s next annual report (or, for a fictional organisation, ~800 words) plus a board paper (1,200 words) recommending a new AI use case, including the risk and governance content that a competent board would expect to see.
Sample question
Management proposes deploying an AI system that will make automated decisions about customer credit. What are the six questions you would insist on being answered before approving the go-live?
Assessments are marked by a named human examiner against the four-dimension rubric: regulatory accuracy (30%), applied judgement (30%), artefact quality (25%), communication (15%). Pass at 60, distinction at 75.
Prerequisites
Board or senior executive experience. No prior AI background required.
Certification
On successful completion (pass mark 60), you receive a SAAII Certified Practitioner (CP) — Board Oversight of AI credential. The credential is CPD-accredited, verifiable at thesaaii.com/verify, and forms one component toward higher-tier credentials. See the certification ladder for how it stacks.
Ready to enrol?
Board Oversight of AI runs continuously with rolling enrolment. Founding-cohort discount (25%) applies to the first 100 enrolments across the whole programme portfolio.
Cohort licensing available from £395/seat (10+). Public sector, education, and registered charity: 20% discount. Instalment plans available for programmes at £495 and above. See For organisations and the FAQ for detail.