Board Papers, AI, and What Actually Makes the Difference

Written by Lieke Bos 

In almost every board review, the quality of board papers surfaces as a key development area. The average board pack now runs to over 220 pages, up nearly a third since 2019. And fewer than half of directors feel their board papers add genuine value.

The growth in length is largely compliance driven. Papers have become more comprehensive in a legal sense, and therefore harder to navigate and prioritise. The compliance layer not only adds volume, but it also buries the information that a non-executive most needs to see.

When compliance dominates the agenda, it shifts attention away from the conversations boards are there to have. Strategic direction, creative challenge, and the kind of independent thinking that comes with genuine distance from the business are where a board adds most value. When that space is lost, the impact is felt quickly. A board that is technically compliant but strategically disengaged is not fulfilling its role, however thorough its papers may be.

When board engagement works, executives gain valuable challenge and perspective, and boards have genuine confidence in the leadership team. When it does not, discussion becomes backward-looking and reactive. Executives feel scrutinised rather than supported, and boards disengage. The relationship on which governance depends quietly deteriorates.

A growing market of tools and advisors has emerged in response, and AI-assisted solutions are increasingly central to that offer. These tools have genuine merit and can improve the structure of board papers, provide prompts to help authors move past a blank page, and tighten executive summaries. However, this solution only addresses the problem at the document level. In Azura’s experience, the more fundamental issue lies elsewhere.

The core challenge is perspective 

Executives are immersed in the business, managing the day-to-day complexity that the board, by design, is not meant to. Non-executives are there to provide independent oversight, to see the bigger picture, and to ask the questions that are harder to ask from inside. They do not need all the granular detail. They need to understand what matters, why it matters, and what is being asked of them. For executives, stepping outside the operational reality to write from that perspective is genuinely difficult.

This challenge is compounded by a recent trend many boards are adopting: to bring sitting executives into non-executive roles for the depth and operational nuance they bring. In practice, these are busy people with less time to work through lengthy board packs, not more.

What actually works

Based on Azura’s work with boards and executives, we see five approaches that make a consistent difference.

1. Build alignment before the paper is written. Executives benefit significantly from identifying the right ally on the board before drafting a paper. This is not about lobbying, but about preparation and gaining perspective. For example, discussing a complex financial item with the Audit Committee Chair, or working through a people or remuneration topic with a board member who has demonstrated a strong interest, can fundamentally change both the quality of the paper and the discussion that follows. The right board member will bring an outside perspective to aid the executive in the creation of their paper.
2. Treat the board as a thinking partner, not an audience. Not every item needs to arrive as a finished proposal. Some of the most productive board conversations happen when an executive brings a genuine question rather than a polished answer. Sharing what is known, what is not, and inviting the board's collective judgement early in the process rather than seeking approval at the end, requires trust. But it is the difference between a board that endorses and a board that genuinely contributes.
3. Separate the formal from the substantive. Approvals, accounts, and other compliance or regulatory matters are necessary, but they are not where the most valuable thinking happens. Boards that set aside time to address formal decision-making first, then allow space for board members to engage more openly with strategic questions, often with a sharper, more genuinely strategic perspective.
4. Use the boardroom for discussion, not recitation. Board papers should be read before the meeting. The Chair holds responsibility for setting and maintaining that expectation. The meeting itself should not be a walkthrough of what is already on the page, it is to test assumptions, surface tensions, and provide the kind of independent challenge a well-functioning board exists to offer. 
5. Build trust and rapport outside the boardroom. The quality of what happens in a board meeting is shaped well before anyone sits down. Informal interactions, whether dinners, coffees, or conversations without an agenda, are what make good governance possible. Board members who know and trust the executives they work with are better placed to challenge constructively. Executives who feel supported rather than scrutinised are more likely to bring their real questions to the table. Over time, that dynamic materially shapes how a board functions. 

A different kind of advisory work

Building these conditions needs more than writing technically better board papers; it requires frank conversations about what is working and what is not, an honest understanding of what the board needs, and the experience to bridge the two. 

Those conversations are often easier with an independent external party present. Not to deliver a verdict, but to hold up the mirror, to surface what boards and executives already sense but have not yet said clearly, and to create the conditions for a more honest dialogue than is always possible from within. 

The Azura perspective

At Azura, our work sits at the intersection of governance, leadership, and long-term organisational direction. As a boutique firm specialising in board and leadership advisory, and executive and non-executive search, we work with Chairs, CEOs, and investors across the UK, the Netherlands, and the US to create the clarity and alignment required for effective decision-making.

Board effectiveness is central to that work. Our board reviews consistently surface the quality of board papers and the board-executive dynamic as development priorities. We work directly with leadership teams to address both: helping executives understand what the board is looking for, building the relationships that make that conversation possible, and ensuring that what happens in the boardroom reflects the quality of thinking that has gone into it.

About the author

Lieke Bos leads Azura's Board and Leadership Advisory practice, focusing on board and team effectiveness reviews, succession planning, and leadership assessment globally.

Read: Strategies for success: enhancing interactions between executives and the board.