More than half of directors want to oust a fellow board member, with more than a third of those citing a lack of relevant know-how as the primary reason, according to a PwC report.
The 2026 Annual Corporate Directors Survey found that 55% of directors think at least one director on their board should be replaced, with 39% of those blaming it on insufficient expertise, up from 21% a year earlier.
That is despite 81% of directors saying alignment with a board’s culture and way of working is the most important criterion when evaluating board candidates, compared to just 27% who said specialised expertise is ‘very important’.
PwC says this disconnect means boards may be diagnosing one problem but recruiting with a different set of criteria.
The boom in AI is also creating anxiety at board level. Some 71% of directors say their boards need to strengthen their AI skills to provide more effective oversight of their organisation’s AI activities, with just 40% saying they use AI as part of their oversight roles (albeit up from 35% last year).
As many as 82% of directors said metrics related to AI outcomes, risks and business performance were either ‘fair’ or ‘poor’, or they don’t have access to any metrics at all, with 75% saying the same for return on AI investment.
Directors are also fretting about AI’s impact on cybersecurity, with 69% citing cyber and data privacy as their leading AI-related concern. Some 93% of directors are worried that a cybersecurity incident could affect their companies over the next three years, with 40% saying they are ‘very concerned’.
To help manage that risk, 58% said they have increased the frequency of interactions between the board and their chief information security officer. Another 44% have clarified escalation protocols for significant cyber incidents and 42% have increased cyber-related education for directors.
PwC said: “AI is changing both the cybersecurity threat landscape and the tools a company can use to defend against it. For boards, that makes cybersecurity a renewed point of emphasis, regardless of how far a company has progressed in implementing AI across the enterprise.”
Other AI-related concerns include the amount of investment their business is making without clear returns (44%) and an over-reliance on AI outputs that is leading to weakened human judgement (35%).
The survey was based on responses from almost 600 company directors in the US.
Email your news and story ideas to: [email protected]
