How Credit Union Boards May Use AI to Support Better Governance

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability, grammar, punctuation, and clarity. Filler words, transcription artifacts, false starts, and repeated words may have been removed.

Doug English: [00:00:00] Welcome to our episode on AI in the boardroom focused on governance. Uh, with us today, Paul Barbato from TruStage, and back again, the very popular Heather McKissick from CUES.
Welcome, uh, both of you. I’m, I’m very excited to talk about AI in the boardroom, and to have your, uh, great wisdom to help me unpack this, uh, for the credit union movement. So, uh, those of you that don’t, uh, know, Heather, uh, is a repeat guest. She did an amazing job on her episode, uh, labeled How to Lead Through Uncertainty in June of 2025.
Look that one up. Uh, a- it is, you know, my staff that edits these, um, episodes became instant Heather fans at that. Ooh. Uh, the way she talked about dealing with, uh, the emotional climate with so much uncertainty, truly, truly an exceptional episode that I would encourage you, uh, to take a look at. Thank you.
Now, Heather, you just got back from Africa, [00:01:00] and you said some really inspiring things, uh, as we were kind of getting ready to talk. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re up to and what you just said?
Heather McKissick: I’m, I’d be happy to, and thank you for, for saying all the things that you said. Boy, if we thought that things were uncertain in June of ’25, um-
and now here we are, and just imagine how uncertain things have become since then. Uh, but yes, I just got back from my fifth trip to Africa, um, with credit unions, or SACCOs as they are known there. Um, so lucky to have been with ACOSCA, which is the Pan-African continental body that works with financial cooperatives.
And, um, there I was mentoring the African Development Educators course. So a lot of people around the world know about DE and how it is, uh, a program that is focused on helping credit union professionals around the world solve critical issues for their [00:02:00] members through the power of credit unions, and that’s what we were doing there.
I got to be with a group of 60 CEOs and board members from 11 different countries, um, on the continent of Africa, learning about how credit unions can make a difference in the lives of their members and improve their communities, and it was just fantastic as always. Hmm. Um, anybody that’s been involved in the global DE movement will tell you that you just always come back feeling a fresh injection of that mission, uh, infusion.
You know, you really just, um, come back inspired to, to keep fighting the good fight.
Doug English: It truly is a global movement, isn’t it? Mm. Yeah, we f- I forget that, right? That it is more than just, uh, the, the US. Uh, that, that, that’s a great, great message. Thank you, Heather. Um-
Heather McKissick: Oh, thank you for asking me.
Doug English: Paul, we’re delighted to have you.
Tell us, uh, how did you get started working at TruStage? How did you get started serving, uh, the credit union [00:03:00] movement? Uh, and now what kind of work are you doing today?
Paul Barbato: Yeah. Th- Doug, thanks for, thanks for having me. Uh, really inspiring having that story about Africa. Um- Mm-hmm … my exposure to the credit union movement and, and TruStage are one and the same, and perhaps slightly less inspiring and maybe more pedestrian than, than Africa trip.
But, uh, nevertheless, a- as impactful for me and what I feel about the credit union industry. So I, I will cop to this. Growing up, I did my personal banking with banks and had very little awareness of credit unions. The exposure that I got was actually through TruStage. I was recruited to TruStage. My, my background is as a lawyer, and I was at a law firm, and I was recruited to work for TruStage by a former partner at that law firm and started to learn more about what was then CUNA Mutual Group, and then started to learn more about credit unions.
And when I got this job, the way that we did orientation at the time was we’ve got this very [00:04:00] thick book called “The Debt Shall Die With the Debtor,” which is the history of CUNA Mutual Group and the history of the credit union movement, and that’s where I learned all about the credit union industry and totally fell in love with it and was kind of shocked and amazed that I hadn’t been exposed to it earlier on in my life.
And now I’m a total evangelist about it, including, you know, when my kids will say, “We went to the bank,” I’ll always correct them. “No, you went to the credit union.” Uh, so that was where I really got the exposure, uh, that I got to the credit union movement, and a- as probably everyone knows, you know, TruStage was formed by credit unions for credit unions, and so we’re intimately tied to the credit union industry, and I’ve had a lot of exposure to and, um, you know, work within the credit union industry ever since.
I’ve been a lawyer for TruStage kind of ever since 2009, which is when I started with the company, uh, and I’m now the chief legal officer here and have been for the last three years or so. [00:05:00] And my role is, you know, obviously overseeing the entire legal department, overseeing a lot of the interactions that we have with credit unions, with credit union boards, uh, helping sometimes on board governance matters within credit unions, and then one of my roles is corporate secretary.
And so what I do with our board is make sure that I facilitate our board meetings and the board practices and processes, uh, in a way that’s consistent with our governance principles and always looking to improve our practices as well.
Doug English: Excellent. Well, you, you– if you can feel free to share with us, uh, uh, to what-whatever degree it’s appropriate and possible, how TruStage is thinking about, uh, AI in the boardroom.
So first, just starting with that broad concept, when you think about AI in the boardroom, what are just your initial thoughts for, uh, credit union boards and credit union leaders?
Heather McKissick: Well, I mean, my first thought is that good governance is good governance, no matter what degree it is powered [00:06:00] by AI or any other tool, and that’s exactly the way…
And I’m looking forward to learning more from Paul, um, but my experience is, and the experience of a lot of CUES members or boards of CUES member credit unions, is that AI is really a tool that is there to improve board effectiveness, and it’s there to help prepare the board and to help, uh, maybe strengthen their decision-making or provide them with additional information so that they don’t have to spend as much time in the, the weeds and can elevate their perspectives to a more strategic governance or, or leadership perspective.
So that’s my first thought when it comes to AI as a tool for governance, but, but certainly not a replacement for it.
Paul Barbato: I, I’m right there with you, Heather. I– the, the two kind of branches that I see i-in boardrooms now when we talk [00:07:00] about AI are, one, their own oversight of what management, either the credit union or in our case at TruStage, are doing with AI and how they’re making sure that they’re exercising the proper oversight over it.
And the other branch is exactly what you described, Heather, which is how can a board use AI in order to become more effective and efficient at their job of overseeing what management is doing? But as you said, Heather, good governance is still good governance, and so the question is how do you use it effectively and efficiently without handing over the keys to AI to do the job of actually overseeing what’s going on?
And how do you make sure that whatever it is that you’re using AI to help assist you with is actually assisting you and isn’t, uh, hallucinating things that make it sound like it’s assisting you?
Doug English: Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Uh, if it wasn’t enough that our media is only what we want and think, then now we have AI to reinforce that what we want or [00:08:00] think is amazing.
Um, but l- let’s go to the NCUA side of it. Uh, what, uh, guidance, uh, is there, uh, about what to do, what not to do? What can credit unions look at, uh, from, from, uh, the regulator, at least, uh, for federal credit unions, Paul?
Paul Barbato: So NCUA has, has been pretty limited in what they’ve issued about what specifically you can and can’t do.
They’ve, they’ve issued a, a few bulletins about making sure that you’re keeping in mind what you should and directing credit unions back to the existing frameworks that are in place, right? So things about third-party vendor management, for example. Those, those still exist, whether it’s an AI vendor or whether it’s a, a non-AI vendor, a non-tech vendor.
So they’ve largely done that, which, you know, candidly I’ll say I think is, is a good approach, which is not overly prescriptive and out of the box trying to, you know, put in a bunch of regulations that might stymie what a credit union [00:09:00] can or can’t do with AI to figure out how best to use it. So the good news about that is a credit union should be thinking about this in a largely principles-based way, right?
And making sure that however they’re using AI, they’re grounded to those principles. So we think about it the same way at, at TruStage, and we’ve, we’ve also been fortunate that the insurance industry has largely followed the same model. So the NAIC, which is the kind of umbrella of the state insurance regulators, they’ve done a very similar thing, which is they’ve issued guidance but not specific rules, uh, that insurance companies should follow.
And a lot of it is about, “Hey, what are you using this for?” And if it’s something sensitive, so if it… it’s gonna impact your members, if it’s gonna impact your employees, if it’s gonna make decisions for you, then what kind of controls are you putting in place to make sure that things are appropriately managed, right?
So do you have a human in the loop if there’s a decision-making process? If it’s affecting [00:10:00] employees or if it’s affecting members, then you really have to step up your governance and make sure that you’re testing it to make sure that it isn’t making bad decisions or it isn’t recommending things that don’t make sense.
Those are the principles without having specific rules about what you, what you should do. NCUA is similarly kind of keeping it, um, not hands-off, but making sure that credit unions are allowed to experiment a little bit, but know that the kind of guiding principles that they have about the way that they treat their members, about the protections that they wanna put in place for data, for privacy, for decision-making that might impact their members, those are the things that are gonna be at the heart of what they need to think about.
So I think that’s really good. I mean, it doesn’t mean that you’re– it’s the Wild Wild West, and you can do whatever you want. Mm-hmm. You still have to kind of exercise good governance both at the board level and at management when they’re rolling out AI tools. But it does mean there aren’t really strict rules that you’re not gonna be able to implement AI tools, uh, [00:11:00] within your credit union because those rules aren’t in place.
So, so far so good, I think, in terms of the kinds of rules and regulations that are in place. This is real-time stuff, though. Yeah. I mean, there’s no question that there are conversations that are happening about it at the NCUA. There are conversations that are happening about it at state regulators that impact, obviously, credit unions in the various different states.
So things are going to change, and I expect there will be some additional rigor in some of the regulations that are issued about AI that will impact this. My hope is, you know, I think a lot of folks understand the upside value in AI. A lot of regulators understand the upside value in AI. So my hope is that a lot of what folks are gonna implement is much more about kind of reporting what, what credit unions are doing, reporting what all institutions are doing by way of governance without specifically limiting what those institutions can do.
Doug English: Mm-hmm. Do– Has there been any don’t-dos, any specific areas where the, uh, regulation [00:12:00] or regulators have said, “Don’t, don’t use it for this, these purposes”? I think don’t hand over the keys, entirely. Okay. All right. That’s the, that’s the key. Didn’t have to be said, but that’s the obvious one, right? Yeah. Um, so I think there’s a lot of ways that AI can make boards potentially better, and one of the ones that Hea-Heather already alluded to is making board members more informed.
Uh, may-maybe more informed, more strategic. I wanna talk about that too, but let’s just start with more informed with the board packet. Like, uh, uh, do you have thoughts about how, uh, AI might, might, uh, remake the board packet, uh, better? Well, I think, you know, as we mentioned before, AI could certainly help provide more strategic insights for board members about the operations of the credit unions to help [00:13:00] inform their strategic decision-making.
Heather McKissick: I know there’s a lot of push and pull, and anecdotally, we hear a lot of really healthy debate and dialogue between board members and members of management about to what level of detail does the board need to be informed in order to guide their true governance-focused conversations. Hmm. And in this particular area related to AI, we hear a lot of curiosity from board members, um, curiosity about how the organization is using it at an operational level.
And it’s not only because everyone in general is curious about the best application of AI to serve the credit union and its members, but it’s also because of the risks that are inherent with the overuse of AI or those, um, [00:14:00] uh, potential traps in terms of data security around members or other data, employee data, that no board wants their team to fall into those traps.
So when it comes to understanding how AI can really help serve the board in the board packet, I would encourage management to remember that what the board really wants are those strategic insights, that rolled-up information, that especially for some credit unions that, um, may not have a board liaison or may be smaller when it comes to the staff that is able to really prepare those, um, analytics on behalf of the board.
AI could be really instructive to give the board the right level of information. But again, as I said before, my opinion is that the [00:15:00] strategy work is still needing to be done between the ears of the board members themselves. We can prepare the board, we can provide them with the detailed information, we can make their reading time less so that they can show up prepared and having read everything that was given to them in advance of the board meeting.
But wouldn’t it be amazing if board members didn’t just spend their preparation time reading, but also thinking and analyzing and preparing the questions that they have to prepare for the staff in that board meeting in order to guide the direction? I think that could be best case use of AI to help a board really inter- in to a strategic discussion Yeah.
Paul Barbato: Totally agree, Heather. Th- so this is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart because before [00:16:00] AI, the, the, the entity that was trying to make the board packet more digestible was me and my team. Yeah. And so what we did, for example, was, you know, on a worst-case scenario, we’ve got– we do quarterly board meetings, and so we tend to pack a lot into those board meetings.
And, you know, in a bad quarter, and I mean bad in terms of just volume of, of information, it’s hundreds of pages of information that they need to, to digest in a sitting before they get to the board meeting to actually have some of these conversations. So one of the things that we did in the past was for each topic that we would have, we would have kind of a cheat sheet at the beginning of that topic that we would create, where the goal was, we’re gonna tell you what we expect you to do with this topic.
So maybe it’s you need to approve this policy or you need to approve this transaction. So we tell you upfront what we want you to do with it, and then we would give you the key points that we think are the [00:17:00] things that you should most focus on in the materials. So the idea is that it’s not going to replace your reading of the materials that we’ve– what we’re providing to you, but hopefully what it’s gonna do is guide you in the right spots so that you’re not spending your time focused on things that don’t matter.
You are honing in on the stuff that matters the most. Now, what I think AI is going to be able to do is do that same thing, but in a more interactive way. So in, in that example, it’s my team who’s going through the material and saying, “Okay, we think these are the most important points that you, the board, should focus on as you’re reading these things.”
Now what the board will be able to do is use an AI tool to do essentially the same thing, to query all of the materials and say, “Hey, what are the things that I should be thinking about, maybe asking questions about? And let’s say I’m focused on this particular strategic question that has come up a couple of times in past board meetings.
Are there spots in these materials where that shows up?” [00:18:00] With hopefully the goal being that will direct their attention to the places in the material where that stuff is the most relevant, and they can spend their time focusing on that and perhaps not spend as much time, although they still should spend some time, focusing on the other parts of the material that are less relevant to those key questions.
The, the difficult part of this dance will be ensuring that what you’re getting back from AI as it focuses you are the right things, and that it’s actually directing you to the spots where you should be spending your time. I think the tools are already pretty good. I think they’re gonna continue to get better in that regard.
But I think the, the key piece that, that directors will have to remember and that we’ll always have to remind them is that don’t– you can’t rely just on that, right? In the same way that we, we tell them, “Hey, you can’t rely just on our one-page summary that we’re providing you about what the key pieces are.
You still have to do your duty as a board member to make sure that you’re [00:19:00] looking at what you should. But what this hope- will hopefully allow them to do is exactly what you suggest, Heather, which is focus on the stuff where they can add the most value as directors. Focus on the strategic parts of their oversight obligation, and hopefully allow them to spend a little bit less of their time focusing on the stuff that doesn’t matter.
You know, one of the things I do think about all the time is there’s a real risk that the more information that you provide, the less they focus on it because- Mm-hmm … it’s just overload, and they start- Mm-hmm … to kinda glaze over, and after they’re through 200 pages, they f- they, you know, they just kind of lose focus- Mm-hmm
and don’t actually hone in on the stuff that they should. And so I think AI can actually help a tremendous amount in that regard.
Heather McKissick: I think that’s right. And, and I’ve got two more quick things to add about all of that. You know, one is that from the, the staff perspective, there is a component of board relations that is whether or not your board is paid, still about good volunteer management, [00:20:00] right?
And good volunteer management means preparing them well for the decisions that are at hand on behalf of the organization, which may or may not mean give them 200 pages to read. So it can be, uh, um, an act of good stewardship and good board relations and volunteer management to leverage those tools appropriately so that you are setting them up for success when it comes to those strategic conversations.
That’s, that’s one thought. Um, another thought related to the, the kind of use of AI in the board packets and otherwise, I think, is really all about, um, helping that board assess itself. Um, in our work at CUES with credit union boards, we hear a lot of boards who, um, want very much to be excellent when it comes to governance.
[00:21:00] And yet, given the limitations of their time and some of the other really pressing strategic priorities for the credit unions, taking a regular look in the mirror, so to speak, doing that periodic board effectiveness self-assessment is something that can often take a back seat. I mean, let’s be honest, all of us as leaders are not always 100% comfortable with that reflection.
How am I doing? How are we doing as a leadership body? Where could we improve? What are we doing well, and how can we do more of it? Those can be sometimes challenging conversations, especially when it typically means there’s a plan for improvement of one kind or another ahead. So even though we know it’s really important for good governance for boards to self-assess on a regular basis, sometimes it doesn’t prioritize itself given [00:22:00] everything else going on.
I think AI can be an excellent tool to do exactly that. As we’re, um, paying attention to the decisions that the board is making, as we’re analyzing the conversations that they are having, as we are looking at the quality of the decision-making or the outcomes-focused nature of those board deliberations, couldn’t AI really support our boards in looking in that mirror and creating a plan to help itself as a body improve year over year, quarter over quarter in service to the membership?
Doug English: The great on that. Wow. There, there’s, one of the things I, I think about, uh, with AI is where to start for a credit union. Let’s say that maybe you’re, maybe you’re listening and you’re one of the credit unions that hasn’t quite decided what to do. One, one of the things I’d love your opinion on is the idea of taking, uh, your strategic plan, [00:23:00] uh, and, and uploading your strategic plan to your secure, uh, AI, uh, and then saying to that AI, “Here is our board packet, and here is our strategic plan.
Uh, are we giving the board the information that it needs to have in order to ask the questions to see if we’re on track for this strategic plan?” And that might help k- kind of align your board more with your strategy. Any, uh, thoughts around that? Have you seen any of that happening?
Paul Barbato: We’ve seen it happening and, you know, part– So maybe focusing on the first, uh, point that you made there, Doug, which is loading it up to your secure AI portal, which is…
It, it is part of the difficulty now is, is making sure that wherever we’re putting these documents, you need to maintain security around them, right? You need to be able to kind of, uh, confidentially query them. So we’ve got enterprise tools that will allow, allow us to do that. Board [00:24:00] portals are now starting to develop some of those same tools.
So, you know, places like OnBoard and Nasdaq BoardVantage. You know, if credit unions are using board portals, they, they’ll typically have AI tools now that you can turn on and that you can turn on to varying degrees, and so you can kind of go with everything they have to offer or maybe just kind of tiptoe into it.
But I think exactly right, what it allows you to do is do some querying of the documents to see if, you know, do these things line up? Do the agenda topics that we’re talking about line up with maybe the strategic plan that we’ve already talked about? Or what are we missing? I mean, to your point, Heather, about maybe doing kind of a self-assessment process One of the things that can happen, especially if, you know, credit unions are on a monthly board cadence still, it’s very difficult to kind of pick your head up and look at what you’re doing and actually assess whether or not you’re doing the right thing.
Because as soon as the board meeting closes, you’re kind of in the next phase for the next board meeting, and you just kind of get [00:25:00] into that repeat rhythm. One of the things I think AI can do is allow you to ask it what you’re missing or what could be different or how you could change things- Yeah … in a way that doesn’t require you to stop all the trains from moving and do that assessment, but instead just says, “Hey, look at what we have.”
Mm-hmm. “Does this make sense? Does it not make sense? Are these things matching up together? And if you were to design this, what else would you include? Are we missing anything key?” I, I think absolutely that’s a great way to use those tools today, and as long as you’ve got access to something that’s, that allows you to confide- confidentially query it, I think that will produce some, some really good results for directors.
Doug English: Mm. Agreed. Some, some boards have been together, as we all know, for decades, and there’s a norm in who speaks and who decides, and there can be some groupthink that goes on with the way things are done. And I wonder if AI could help [00:26:00] to, to, to, a- again, just like Paul said, look at other opinions, question that.
But it doesn’t have any emotion, right? It doesn’t have any… It has no outcomes other than to, to agree with you.
Paul Barbato: A- and there’s some safety in it as well, right? I mean, it, in, you know, the other way to do this sometimes is to bring a third party who comes in and looks at your practices and, and tells you whether or not they, there should be changes.
That’s a really good practice to engage in, and I’m not at all suggesting that you shouldn’t. But you do find that especially long-term boards, there tend to, tends to be some resistance to that, both to bringing them on and perhaps to some of the critiques that they may have, just ’cause it may hurt. It may hurt a little less if they’re able to confidentially ask AI instead.
Heather McKissick: It can take some of the, the, the human or the emotional or even the political charge out of a lot of those debates or conversations or suggestions for change or improvement. I think that’s absolutely right. I think [00:27:00] also, however, in order for that to truly be effective, there has to be a fundamental trust in the tools and the use of the tools that has got to be established appropriately over time, especially when you’re talking about a very long-seated board or very long-tenured board members.
Introduction of any new process, any new system, especially one that might challenge what has worked for a long period of time, is something that I think management has got to always take responsibility for together with the board or the officers of the board and make sure that those new tools and processes and systems are being, um, introduced appropriately, slowly, and that the change management and communication related to the use of these tools is careful.
Because the last thing, of course, that we want to do is promote [00:28:00] haste or distrust in something as important as the analysis that is fueling the strategic plan or other decisions that that board is charged with making.
Doug English: Well, well said. I, I can just imagine that, uh, once a board got comfortable talking with its, uh, AI tool, I guess is the right– I’m like, it’s not a board member, it’s a AI tool.
The, the scenario analysis could be really interesting about, you know, if you’re, uh… Reporting I did yesterday was about creating a digital brand, uh, and the credit union that did that ha-had to kind of, uh, start cl-almost from scratch to figure out how that might look, what that might cost, who the right vendors might be.
And they went through that process, and it took them, I believe it was a year. And it seems like with AI, uh, and the ability to, to ask questions and question those [00:29:00] questions and, uh, and, and vision out what might be possible as you pur- uh, you pursue a strategic goal could be quite different to say, “Well, what if interest rates change,” right?
That’s a complex thing to analyze and model, uh, that your CFO has to deal with. AI, um, should be questioned, but may be able to do that for you instantly right up on screen. Uh, thoughts, or have you seen anyone doing, uh, anything like that?
Heather McKissick: I think it makes perfect sense to think about the use of tools like this for the kind of scenario planning that you’re talking about, Doug, which is of course, uh, highly correlated but not the same as the strategic planning that most boards are going through- Mm-hmm
on a periodic basis. And, um, I know that when it comes to risk management and really getting the board’s head around the realities, not just of the current operation but what the next three to five years may hold and how they should be thinking about and anticipating- Mm … some of those decisions that they need [00:30:00] to make in the future, strikes me that that’s an excellent application of the use- Mm
of some of these tools as well.
Paul Barbato: Yeah, I candidly, I’m, I’m not seeing it in practice in a boardroom yet. Um, I do expect that that’s the direction it’s gonna go. Uh, the, the thing I find is AI tools tend to be some of the most useful at kind of brainstorming and thinking about possibilities and the way that things might break in a way that, you know, you either could do and it would take you a long time, or you’re just kind of not as capable as they are of thinking of every single possibility that could happen and running that through the rubric, right?
I mean, one of the things that we, we do all the time and advise about all the time is tying your strategic plan in with your risk review, right? So you’re setting your strategy, okay, what are the risks related to it across, you know, your entire credit union or your entire enterprise, and making sure that you’re appropriately thinking about those and managing those.[00:31:00]
I mean, to add to your point exactly, you set a strategic plan in place, there may be risks that you’re just not even thinking about and that AI can actually provide some really useful intelligence about. The other piece that I think, you know, uh, selfishly, I think I would be super interested in, uh, using as a board member is you can imagine a scenario where, you know, you get a board packet and you’re talking to your AI tool and asking it questions about exactly that, right?
So I, I think that what I read in the board packet was this. Can you tell me whether that’s right? Okay. What if interest rates, Doug, to your point, do drop significantly? Do– is there any information in there about what the impact might be on, you know, member loan behavior, member deposit behavior, for example?
And it will be able to give you real-time feedback, including external feedback. So maybe there’s nothing in the board packet, but historically, what has been the result of decreasing interest rates on loan behavior, [00:32:00] on deposit behavior? And then you can start to kind of meld those two things together, and you can envision yourself as a director driving your car and talking to AI and having much more thoughtful interaction with a board packet than you might just reading it
Heather McKissick: You know, Paul, as you’re talking, I can’t help but with my CUES hat on and thinking about you with your TruStage hat on, you know, the value of that kind of insight for system partner organizations as well, because our boards need to understand the sort of aggregate effect that these downstream implications have on credit unions across the continent in so many ways, right?
And so really being able to extract those kinds of industry insights and apply them to, in my case, association management, um, your case is, is different of course, but the end result is the same. How do we inform our boards who are there to [00:33:00] support the industry as they go about making some of those key strategic decisions as well?
Paul Barbato: It’s such a great point, Heather. The, the interconnectivity of everything has made it a lot more challenging to understand the risks and, and manage the risks. And that’s, you know, true both for kinda how organizations interact with each other, whether it’s associations and credit unions or whether it’s vendors where you’re dealing with third parties and then their third parties, so fourth and fifth and sixth parties.
It, it’s a real challenge to make sure that you’re appropriately managing that- Mm-hmm … those risks and those engagements. AI actually can assist a great deal in that, in seeing around the corners and trying to map kind of where your biggest risks might, might live. Yeah. Out-out-outstanding. That, that was so good.
Doug English: I was gonna ask a question, but you just kept going, and it just kept getting better. I love that. One of, one of the, the big takeaways working with AI more and more is, is, as Paul [00:34:00] said, you don’t have to start with a white sheet of paper, uh, anymore. You can, you ask AI, and you can kind of get some ideas.
And one of the things I wanna make sure our listeners take away is you can start by asking AI, “How should I start?” Mm. “I’m, I’m pursuing this outcome. How should I start? What do you need to know? Ask me 10 questions to help me to figure out what to start with.” You don’t have to know. I think this conversation is really good from a strategic standpoint, but if you don’t know, ask AI how you should start.
Uh, and then slowly, you know, think about your governance, think about your strategy, and, and, and experiment. Like, uh, you know, you need it to be secure. You need to, you know, your IT department can help you make sure that’s the case. But experiment with AI. The potential to support board volunteers with additional information and preparation tools may be meaningful.
I think that should be one of the big takeaways from this conversation. The possibilities for powering the credit [00:35:00] union movement forward with better, more informed volunteers is real and should be happening. We wanna normalize that at CU on the Show. Like, that is what I’m here to do with this board, uh, AI in the Boardroom series.
So outstanding content. Thank you so much. Just any, finally, you wanna take any guesses about where it’s going? Like, uh, it’s moving so fast, and of course, now there’s agentic AI that will do stuff for us. It is moving at a speed that I find, uh, just it, it’s unbelievable. I feel like I, I keep getting further on the treadmill.
I’m trying not to fall off the backside. Uh, any thoughts about where it might be going or what you think is coming next, if you dare? I might dare in just a second.
Heather McKissick: Uh, I will say, Doug, though, you just said something that is interesting because one of the number one pieces of advice that we give to CEOs or other executives who are looking to really establish, um, solid, regular [00:36:00] trusting relationships with their board members, but they, they don’t know where to start, is ask them.
Ask them. Mm-hmm. I mean, it’s so interesting that you basically just gave the same piece of advice related to AI that we’ve been giving for years related to good old-fashioned human interaction for people who really do have the best interests of the organization in mind, but want to keep evolving and keep growing and learning.
So I thought that was interesting, and I think it’s, it’s great that it applies kind of in both situations. I, I have no idea. Paul is far better the expert than I am in, in terms of legal- Saying I don’t know is a good, good way to go on this one. I’ll tell you, but though, if you know anything about me, Doug, you know that I’m a big science fiction fan, right?
Ooh. And so I could imagine the, um, AI agent board member or maybe the holographic board member that is powered by AI that one day just sort of pops up, um, on the [00:37:00] table, uh, and says, you know, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi.” Uh, whatever the case may be, right? I think that the possibilities are limitless as long as we are utilizing these tools in the way that we have described and prescribed for human interaction equally as, um, rigorously, and that is to focus on trust, to focus on credibility, and to never lose sight of the member.
Because at the end of the day, we are an industry that is about people helping people, and we can use as many tools as we want to accomplish that goal, but that people-focused factor can never get left behind. Oh, so good. I, just a second, Paul. I, she stimulated that. I got a minute. Just two things I gotta say.
Doug English: One is you can have an AI in those board meetings that is the representation of the member. Here are the characteristics of our membership. Here are the [00:38:00] things that we hear in our surveys. The member is one of the AIs in the boardroom. Uh, that, you just stimulated that idea. Thank you for that. Yeah. Go ahead, Paul.
Paul Barbato: Well, I was just now envisioning maybe now that member looks like Princess Leia, ’cause I think- … that was the hologram. No, I, I totally agree. I think there’s gonna be an opportunity for you to, you know, program the AI to have the right interests in mind so that it’s looking at the board packet with those, those constant principles at the forefront, right?
So if you are asking it, “Hey, take a look at all the operations, take a look at this entire board packet, and focus on the interests of the credit union member and how this credit union is serving those members,” it may provide you different information than if you’re asking it different questions. And so I do expect that’s probably where we’re gonna go.
You know, the lawyer in me will, will say that we’ll always need a traditional board packet because part of what we do with our boards is create records, right? So that, that traditional board packet will always exist. [00:39:00] I think the way that this is gonna change is exactly what we’ve been talking about, which is how we interact with it, and I think that’s true both for management and for, uh, the directors on the board.
It will allow us, I think, to get much more strategic and much more interactive with that board packet in many different ways than we ever have before. To boldly go- … where no credit union has gone before. To mix, to mix the Trek with the board. So that one, Heather, yes. Don’t stop, Heather. I love it. I love it.
Doug English: Out- outstanding. Outstanding. Thank you for your service to the credit union movement. Thank you for your great ideas that you’ve shared today. I think you may hear a lot about the content that you just captured for the credit union movement. Uh, so with that, Heather McKissick and Paul Barbato, thank you so much.
Uh, we will look forward to, uh, maybe in the future, like two months, which is now two years, uh, when we’ll, uh, we’ll, uh, try to get together, uh, again and see what’s next. [00:40:00] So listeners, there’s a whole series coming to you one after the next on AI in the boardroom. We are going to do everything we can to help you understand, help to e- evaluate the tools, think about it strategically, and normalize AI as a superpower to power the volunteers and the employees of the credit union movement.
Until next time