Navigating reporting in an AI world

Discover how AI is underlining the role of reporting as a strategic asset while helping drive transparency and consistency across communications.

Over recent months, we’ve seen a huge interest in AI, the impact it is having on reporting and broader communications and its role in helping deliver reports. Two of our partners, Oliver Long, Technical Director, and Rachel Crossley, Director of Stakeholder Communications, spoke last week at the Workiva Accelerate event in London on how companies can ensure they are prepared for this new AI-driven world. In this article we share their insights and recommendations.

In an AI world, how do companies ensure reporting is meeting the needs of all their audiences, including non-human readers?

Three key points to consider:

Transparency

Data is important to demonstrate performance. We know AI is scraping data from digital sources and reports. You want it to use your content rather than going to other sources- so make sure you are providing relevant, high quality, decision-useful information in a way that is digitally accessible and clearly structured. 

Structured data formats like iXBRL (Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language) provide machine-readable, standardised tagging of financial and business information, reducing ambiguity and enabling AI to interpret data accurately and efficiently. In the context of corporate reporting, consider performance dashboards or a data annex, or additional ESG data books. 

While having the right content on the website is a big step in the right direction, if it isn’t sufficiently visible, then those looking for information will likely see incorrect or out of date content. 

AI tools collect data much like search engines do, using ‘spiders’ or ‘bots’ to scan and index content. Website security systems, such as Cloudflare, are starting to block AI bots by default, which can prevent websites from being accessed by these tools. Companies should therefore have a bot management strategy to ensure that the likes of ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity can see content. 

Consistency

Consistency is key, in terms of the data and metrics reported over time to allow trends to be evaluated, in terms of the tone of voice, and in terms of messaging. 

It’s important to take a holistic approach across channels and documents – from results presentations, and annual and sustainability reports to the website and social media - to ensure consistency while also tailoring to meet different stakeholder needs.

Content published on your website, rather than buried in PDFs, is understood to be 2.3 times more visible to AI tools, so it’s important to actively surface your critical content online, repurposing and expanding information from the annual report. Ensuring your online information is consistently up to date is also essential.

We recommend, as much as is possible with the systems reporters have in place, that companies automate this surfacing of information, by utilising connections such as APIs to instantly update the website with accurate information as it changes.  

Creativity

While AI should now be considered a core audience in corporate comms, reports and wider comms should also build trust with human stakeholders through differentiated and authentic messaging. Creativity plays an important part in balancing data-driven disclosures with storytelling. A range of features can support this, including case study, infographics and storytelling pages in reports, as well as digital elements such as video content spotlighting Q&As with leadership or footage of manufacturing sites, for example.

Conclusion

AI is already a part of the systems we interact with daily, so it's important to understand the basics of working with these tools, both in our personal and professional lives. Reading up on best practices for AI prompting, or ‘prompt engineering’ and trying out the tools will help develop a good understanding of how to get the best from them. 

And most importantly, don’t forget the humans! AI is now a key stakeholder, but there are many others. Continuing to engage with all stakeholders will help ensure you are meeting their differing needs while building trust and credibility. 

For a session on practical steps you can take to ensure your reporting is meeting the needs of all audiences, including non-human readers then contact us at [email protected]