Key Takeaways for Reporting Teams from Annual Reports & Proxies

Annual filing season can be demanding. But it is also a clear window into how companies are thinking about risk, governance, performance, and disclosure strategies in real time.

That was the focus of our recent Nasdaq webinar, “The AI-Enabled Filing Season: Emerging Disclosure Trends You Need to Know, during which Michelle Daly,” Nasdaq’s Controller, and Sandy Fine, Nasdaq Securities and Governance Counsel, and I took a practical look back across this year’s annual reports and a subset of proxy statements to understand what changed, what tightened, and where disclosure expectations continue to rise. The discussion grounded those broader filing trends in something many cross-functional reporting teams are also navigating: how to use AI in disclosure workflows effectively, efficiently, and with a clear return on investment.

Key Takeaways for Cross-Functional Reporting Teams

• AI disclosure is rapidly maturing: Companies are expanding AI-related risk factor language and are increasingly reflecting board oversight of AI more explicitly in proxy disclosures.
• Disclosure language is becoming more specific and technical: Broad labels are giving way to more targeted language, particularly across AI, tariffs, carbon, and GHG-related topics.
• Proxy statements show progress, but not consistency, on AI governance: More companies are assigning board-level oversight of AI, though most are embedding it into existing committees rather than building standalone governance structures.
• The most immediate value of AI is speed: Webinar poll results showed that cross-functional reporting teams are seeing the greatest benefit from AI in accelerating research and analysis.

AI adoption still depends on trust and ROI: Real-world AI use case examples shared during the webinar reinforce that teams are using AI for benchmarking and disclosure support, but measurable value and strong controls remain critical.

Risk Factor Trends Show Where Attention Is Moving

One of the strongest themes from the webinar was that disclosure language is not changing randomly. It is shifting in ways that reflect what boards, management teams, and investors increasingly care about. Leveraging data surfaced by AI-native Nasdaq Lens™ across FY 2024-2026 10-K risk factors,* it is clear that:

• AI remained one of the most dynamic areas of change. Across the filings reviewed, 336 companies added new AI risk factors and 383 expanded existing ones, indicating that many issuers are moving beyond generic mentions and developing more tailored disclosure language.
• Tariffs continued as an area of meaningful expansion. 270 companies expanded tariff-related risk factors and 195 added new ones, suggesting that macroeconomic and geopolitical pressures are showing up more directly in disclosure language.

Sustainability-related risk factors softened. 310 companies reduced or removed ESG risk factor language. That does not necessarily mean sustainability issues are disappearing, but suggests companies may be moving away from broad, umbrella framing toward more specific language tied to material business issues.

Annual Report Language Gets More Technical, Specific, and Operational

The webinar also highlighted how topic mentions are evolving across annual reports. Returning to data surfaced by Nasdaq Lens’ review of 2025 10-K, 20-F, and 40-F filings,* the headline is not simply that AI is appearing more often. The language itself is becoming more technical and more tied to real-world implementation. This is an important disclosure signal. As scrutiny rises, broad language may be giving way to language that is easier to substantiate, benchmark, and defend.

• Terms such as “AI agent” saw a sharp rise, reflecting a move beyond general discussion of generative AI toward more concrete descriptions of tools and workflows.
• Mentions of “autonomous” and “robot” also point to a more operational vocabulary entering public company reporting, particularly as companies move from experimentation to commercialization of these products.

Sustainability language appears to be settling into a more mature phase. Broad references to “ESG,” “net zero,” and “DEI,” were less prominent in the trend data than some prior cycles, while more targeted terms such as “carbon” and “GHG” appeared steadier.

Proxy Statements Show AI Oversight Is Unevenly Maturing

The proxy statements reviewed reveal how companies are formalizing AI governance at the board level. Nasdaq Lens was used to analyze some large and mega cap 2026 proxy filers* in an effort to help companies prepare for their own proxy statements. Key insights from the 82 large and mega cap proxy statements reviewed include:

• 42% disclosed board oversight of AI in 2026, up from 26% in 2025. This year-over-year increase suggests AI governance is becoming more visible in proxy disclosure, but still far from universal.
• Disclosures suggest that companies are generally integrating AI oversight into existing committee structures, most commonly audit, technology, or risk committees, rather than creating standalone AI committees.
• Only 11% disclosed formal AI training for directors, pointing to a governance education gap that may become more visible as expectations evolve.
• Proxy disclosure around AI-related executive compensation remains at an even earlier stage. Only four companies included AI as a component of executive compensation and was generally framed as part of broader strategic objectives rather than a standalone or quantifiable metric. Given that, companies may be willing to discuss AI as a strategic priority, but it appears most are not ready to hardwire it into compensation design.

Practical AI Conversations Have Moved Beyond Theory

What made the webinar especially valuable was that the discussion did not stay at the trend level. Daly and Fine brought it into the day-to-day reality of how cross-functional reporting teams are or aren’t leveraging AI in real-life workflows.

Daly shared that sustainability reporting sits within the finance team reporting into her. Her team used Nasdaq Lens to benchmark sustainability risk factors against sector peers as part of this year’s 10-K process. That is a practical example of where AI can provide value today: not replacing judgment but helping teams assess market practice faster and with more confidence.

Fine spoke about using Nasdaq Lens to benchmark 10-K risk factors in areas such as AI. The platform can quickly compare language, identify patterns, and help pressure-test whether a company’s disclosure is keeping pace with peers and emerging expectations.

Moreover, Daly raised the point: new tools still need a clear ROI. In enterprise settings, adoption will not be driven by novelty. It will be driven by measurable value such as time saved, research accelerated, better visibility into market practice, and stronger consistency across disclosure workflows.

The webinar poll reinforced that point. When asked where AI is delivering the most value today in cross-functional reporting team workflows, 65% said AI is speeding up research and analysis. Far fewer selected improving disclosure quality and consistency (13%), supporting compliance and risk identification (7%), or reducing reliance on external advisors (3%), while 12% said AI had not yet been adopted.

These poll findings suggest the value of AI is still in making knowledge work faster. But it also points to where there is opportunity. As teams build trust, governance, and repeatable processes around AI, the value case may broaden from research efficiency into higher-quality drafting, benchmarking, controls, and review.

What Cross-Functional Reporting Teams Should Take Away from This Filing Season

So far, this year’s filing season showed that disclosures are becoming more dynamic, specific, and interconnected across cross-functional reporting teams, including legal, finance, sustainability, and risk teams.

For teams still in the thick of reporting season, these insights can serve as a practical guide from companies just slightly further along in the process. And for those already through the busiest stretch, this is a good moment to step back and assess where technology could ease the most resource-intensive parts of the process. The goal is not to automate human judgment, but to create more space for it, freeing teams’ time spent on repetitive work to spend more time on the strategic decisions that matter most.

For a deeper look at the filing data, proxy trends, and practical examples, watch the webinar replay here.
 

*Analyzed 10-K, 10-Q, 20-F, 40-F, DEF 14A over the last four fiscal years of companies over $250M in market capitalization. DEF 14A filings included all large and mega cap companies that filed between January 1, 2026 and March 12, 2026. Annual comparisons use stub periods and data is compared using consistent periods for each year. Data as of March 12, 2026.