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Shadow AI Audit
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AI Strategic Radar | What is it?
The AI Strategic Radar is a quarterly scanning and monitoring tool designed to help organisations identify important AI developments before they become business issues. It helps boards and leadership teams focus on the trends most likely to affect their strategy over the next 6 to 24 months.
- Why you need it - AI, regulation and stakeholder expectations are evolving rapidly, and directors are expected to stay reasonably informed (Section 228, Companies Act 2014). The AI Strategic Radar helps boards stay informed and focused on the issues that matter most.
- What you get - A quarterly summary of key AI developments, prioritised as Watch, Discuss or Act. The archived series is your evidence of oversight.
- How it works - In a 90-minute quarterly review, assess relevant AI developments, consider their impact and identify where action is needed. A simple scoring method helps prioritise attention.
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A quarterly external-scanning discipline. It surfaces the AI developments most likely to shape your strategic decisions in the next 6-24 months and turns them into a Watch / Discuss / Act recommendation for the leadership team and the governing body. It scans four rings:
- Regulation & Policy: Laws, codes, regulator guidance, government strategy, sectoral rules.
- Technology Capability: Capability jumps, new modalities, platform commoditisation, vendor concentration.
- Competitive & sector: What competitors and adjacent sectors are deploying; customer-facing AI as buyer expectation.
- Workforce & Skills: Talent market, displacement signals, training capacity, director skills-matrix shifts.
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Once a quarter, five steps: 90 minutes with the leadership team, followed by a focused 20-minute board oversight discussion.
1. Check your sources: Review where you scanned last quarter. Keep, drop, add.
2. Capture what changed: 8-12 signals across the four rings. Note the source, what changed, and why it matters to you.
3. Score each signal: When does this start to affect us? and if it happens, how big a deal is it? The Tracker scores it out of 25.
4. Tag the response: WATCH, DISCUSS or ACT, each with a named owner and a review date.
5. Send one page: Complete the one-page synthesis and put it in the pack. -
- 8–12 signals scored across the four rings, ranked by priority.
- A WATCH / DISCUSS / ACT classification for every signal, with a named owner.
- A one-page synthesis for the leadership-team pack.
- A quarterly audit trail evidencing Section 228(1)(g) oversight.
What this is NOT
The Strategic Radar is not your strategy. It's a way of staying informed so your board can make better strategic decisions and avoid surprises. -
The radar supports regulatory compliance by helping directors stay informed and demonstrate their oversight responsibilities.
- Companies Act 2014, Section 228(1)(g) requires directors to exercise care, skill and diligence. A quarterly radar helps organisations stay ahead of change, while the archived series builds a valuable evidence base.
- The radar tracks EU AI Act milestones and feeds Tool 1.3, the EU AI Act Readiness Check.
- GDPR remains the most consequential adjacent regime, particularly for workforce signals.
The Implementation Guide in the downloads section below sets out the current dates and the duty framing in detail.
Download the Working Tools
The Tracker runs the quarterly process - signal capture, scoring, synthesis and the duty framing. The Implementation Guide is the method behind it, written to be printed and kept.
Disclaimer
The AI Governance Toolkit is provided by the Institute of Directors (IoD) Ireland for general informational purposes only. It is intended as a practical guide to support members. The toolkit does not constitute legal, regulatory or professional advice. IoD Ireland accepts no liability for any loss, damage or consequence arising from the use of, or reliance on, this material.
