Boards build the oversight. Substance leads signal.

91% of Nasdaq-100 boards carry an operative oversight mechanism — a charter clause that says the committee shall oversee AI. Only 68% stop at an aspirational statement. Enacted runs 23pp ahead of stated.

As of 2026 Q2Channel: Board / DEF 14ARollup: firm-levelCoding: live

The pattern holds across cohorts

Everywhere we look, mechanism leads messaging.

share of disclosing firms

Each row is a cohort. The distance between the two dots is the substance premium: how far enacted oversight runs ahead of stated commitment.

Fig. 1 · Substance premium by cohortBoard / DEF 14A

0%25%50%75%100%

Nasdaq-100 n=66

+23pp

Insurance n=39

+39pp

Top-50 Tech n=49

+31pp

Nasdaq Semis n=15

+34pp

Top-50 Banks n=13

+15pp

Nasdaq Software n=12

+16pp

Internet & Media n=9

+0pp

Healthcare n=7

+29pp

Managed Care n=6

+17pp

Substance: enacted board mechanismSignal: publicly commits, may or may not enact

The same pattern, as data

Cohort by cohort

substance ≥ signal

Gap = share with signal minus share with substance. Negative wherever coverage is real: more firms show an enacted board mechanism than an aspirational one.

Fig. 2 · Firm-level rollupcurrent emissions

CohortCohort	FirmsFirms w/ board ev.	Substance	Signal	Signal-only	Gap
Nasdaq-100	66	91%	68%	6	-23pp
Insurance	39	90%	51%	4	-38pp
Top-50 Tech	49	92%	61%	4	-31pp
Nasdaq Semis	15	87%	53%	2	-33pp
Top-50 Banks	13	92%	77%	1	-15pp
Nasdaq Software	12	83%	67%	2	-17pp
Internet & Media	9	89%	89%	1	0pp
Healthcare	7	100%	71%	0	-29pp
Managed Care	6	100%	83%	0	-17pp

Reproduce it

Provenance

live Supabase

Source table: aigma_emissions (live Supabase)
Filter: channel = 'B' and superseded_by is null (current emissions only)
Rollup unit: firm. Has substance if it carries ≥1 SUB emission; has signal if ≥1 SIG.
Script: scripts/panel-study/compute-board-sub-sig.ts

All figures read the Board (DEF 14A) channel only, which over-represents substance because a proxy-statement charter is operative by construction. Read it as board-level oversight, not a company's overall AI maturity. Absence of a coded emission is absence of disclosure, not proof a mechanism does not exist.