By Dr Liezl Groenewald, The Ethics Institute

Artificial intelligence has transformed misinformation from a communications challenge into a governance risk. Deepfake videos, fabricated documents, and cloned voices can now be produced in minutes, making it increasingly difficult for organisations to distinguish fact from fiction.

Organisations spend enormous amounts of time preparing for financial shocks and cyberattacks, while responding to regulatory change and operational disruption. Yet one of the greatest threats to ethical governance today rarely appears on a Board’s risk register: misinformation.

That omission is becoming increasingly difficult to justify.

We tend to associate misinformation with election campaigns, conspiracy theories, and social media. But some of its most damaging consequences are unfolding much closer to home, inside organisations themselves.

False information and manipulated evidence, whether accidental or deliberate, can influence Board decisions, destroy reputations, derail investigations and erode trust long before the facts are established. Generative artificial intelligence has dramatically increased both the speed and sophistication with which misinformation can be created and shared.

This should concern every Board.

The real question is no longer whether misinformation exists. It is whether Boards are governing the integrity of the information they rely on.

Ethical governance depends on one fundamental assumption: that decision-makers can distinguish fact from fiction. Directors exercise oversight based on reports presented to them. Executives allocate resources based on information received. Audit committees rely on evidence. Investigators assess testimony and documentation. Whistleblowing systems depend on credible disclosures. Remove confidence in the integrity of information and governance itself begins to unravel.

Not all misinformation is malicious. Much of it arises through misunderstanding, poor communication, or incomplete information. Rumours become accepted as fact. Preliminary findings become definitive conclusions. Opinions are presented as evidence. But increasingly, misinformation is also being weaponised. It is used to discredit individuals, influence investigations, and advance political or commercial interests.

The distinction between misinformation and disinformation matters less than their shared consequence: they undermine trust.

And trust remains the currency of governance.

Organisations today operate in an environment where information spreads almost instantaneously. A misleading post on social media, an unverified internal email or a fabricated image can reach thousands of stakeholders before an organisation has even convened its crisis response team. By the time the truth emerges, reputational damage has often become irreversible. The consequences extend well beyond public perception.

Employees repeatedly exposed to misinformation begin questioning their leaders’ credibility. Confidence in governance structures weakens. Whistleblowers may become reluctant to report concerns if they believe rumours carry greater influence than evidence. Investigations become increasingly difficult when speculation contaminates witness accounts or shapes public expectations before the investigative process has even begun.

Perhaps the greatest danger is that organisations themselves begin making decisions in response to narratives rather than verified facts.

That is not merely poor communication.

It is poor governance.

The King V Report on Corporate Governance places ethical and effective leadership at the centre of good governance. It expects governing bodies to lead with integrity, competence, responsibility, accountability, fairness and transparency. Those responsibilities become impossible to fulfil if the information on which decisions are based cannot be trusted.

Few Boards are asking that question. Most organisations already have financial controls, cybersecurity strategies, and enterprise risk management frameworks. Increasingly, they also have AI strategies. Yet relatively few have governance frameworks specifically designed to protect information integrity against AI-generated misinformation, manipulated evidence, or coordinated disinformation campaigns.

That needs to change. Information integrity should be treated as an enterprise governance issue rather than simply a communications or technology concern.

Boards should begin by asking four questions. Can digital evidence be authenticated? Is AI-generated content governed appropriately? Do crisis communication plans anticipate misinformation? Are whistleblowing investigations equipped to deal with synthetic evidence?

Boards should also recognise that misinformation is not only an external threat. Internal misinformation can be equally destructive.

Selective reporting to executives, incomplete Board papers, misleading performance indicators and the omission of inconvenient facts all undermine ethical decision-making. Governance failures do not always begin with fraud or corruption. Sometimes the greatest risk is simply what is left out.

Technology has undoubtedly increased the scale of the challenge. Artificial intelligence has lowered the cost of creating convincing falsehoods while increasing the speed with which they spread. But technology is not the root cause.

Culture is.

Organisations are far less vulnerable to misinformation when people feel able to question what they see rather than simply accepting it as fact. Ethical leadership is demonstrated not by reacting fastest, but by verifying the facts before acting.

Ultimately, misinformation presents an ethical question long before it becomes a communications problem.

It tests whether organisations remain committed to honesty when falsehoods are convenient and accountability when uncertainty makes speculation tempting.

In an era where artificial intelligence can manufacture convincing lies at unprecedented scale, safeguarding the integrity of information has become one of the defining governance responsibilities of our time.

Because when organisations can no longer trust the information on which decisions are based, ethical governance does not simply weaken.

It becomes impossible.

Dr Liezl Groenewald is Chief Executive Officer of The Ethics Institute, a co-founding director of The Whistleblower House, and a recognised authority on organisational ethics, corporate governance and whistleblowing. She serves on the King Committee on Good Governance, ISO Standards on the Governance Maturity of Organisations and Whistleblowing, and is a regular media commentator on ethics and governance.