Corporate AI transparency : an analysis of disclosure evolution in corporate filings

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence has evolved drastically in the last decade to major technology that helps corporations in strategic decision-making and automating operations in almost every industry. This thesis utilised both the qualitative and quantitative analysis to explore the SEC files of top 500 companies by market share from the whole decade of 2015 to 2024. There are number of insights found in our research about the AI disclosure of these companies. This study found that use of AI in SEC reports have grown significantly from the past decade with only 4% of companies in 2015 to 94% companies in 2024. The research also highlights that companies shifted their AI disclosure practices from mentioning AI as an aspirational technology in earlier years to use AI for decision-making and competitive advantage. In addition to highlighting the yearly analysis of companies, this research also explored in detail how the specific sectors are mentioning AI in their reports and what are the disclosure similarities or differences in various sectors. Our research provides a thorough analysis for researchers, academic professionals, investors and stakeholders of disclosure practices of companies and how these companies evolved with their disclosure of Artificial Intelligence. This research concluded that from 2015 to 2023, companies were disclosing AI in their reports gradually but there is drastic increase across sectors in AI disclosure from 2023 to 2024.