Generative AI Shock and CEO-Board Information Sharing
This study examines how the generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) shock alters the information-sharing equilibrium between the CEO and the board. Building on Adams and Ferreira (2007), I develop an analytical framework in which the GenAI shock simultaneously increases business uncertainty and amplifies the CEO’s private benefits, producing opposing effects on her incentive to share information. Three channels emerge: under advice-seeking, the CEO shares more as the marginal value of board advice dominates; under monitoring threat, she shares less as heightened career risk and expanded discretion dominate; under strategic neutrality, the two forces offset. Two firm-level factors determine which channel prevails: the level of agency problems and the relative AI-domain knowledge between the CEO and the board. As an additional analysis, shareholders optimally respond by adjusting board independence rather than maintaining it at its pre-shock level. The framework yields implications for empirical research on AI-era corporate governance.