Corporations play a foundational role in the global economy, yet persistent gaps remain between corporate governance ideals, legal frameworks and organizational practice. The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI and large language models, intensifies these challenges by reshaping corporate decision-making, compliance and accountability. This paper examines how AI both promises to alleviate long-standing governance problems, such as information asymmetries and managerial opportunism, and generates new risks arising from opacity, automation bias and diminished human oversight. It analyzes five interrelated areas of tension: the emerging AI governance gap, models of AI integration within corporate structures, the adaptation of directors’ duties to algorithmic decision-making, the transparency paradox created by AI-mediated disclosure and the problem of anthropomorphism, whereby attributing agency to AI risks obscuring human responsibility. Rather than offering definitive solutions, the paper identifies critical questions that corporate law must confront as automated and semi-automated corporations become an established reality. It argues that sustaining legitimacy in the AI era requires renewed emphasis on human judgment, board-level oversight and adaptive governance frameworks capable of reconciling technological power with legal accountability and societal expectations.