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by Erik Carlson on Aug 27, 2026, 12:26:02 PM
I’ve spent years watching investor relations and public relations from different vantage points, including my time as CFO. Historically, they operated largely separate. Today, the lines between the functions are increasingly blurred.
Shareholder engagement and communication aren't any more important in 2026 than they were ten years ago - but they are much harder to do well. Trust in the media is at a new low according to Gallup, the rules governing content visibility are being rewritten and opinions are forming faster than the cadence of quarterly disclosures.
Increasingly, AI acts as a translation layer between the financial narrative corporate issuers want to tell and the one the street hears, reads and acts on. Ensuring your story 'translates' well, between issuer and audience, is a growing team sport, and one that requires traditional IR and PR efforts be joined across owned and earned channels more than ever.
The best IR teams are already adjusting. They're rethinking strategies and changing tactics to better earn attention, measure shareholder engagement and deliver the kind of messaging clarity that ultimately earns capital.
How Investors Are Using AI in Financial Research
Technology has always changed how investors research companies, with digital filings, online earnings calls and real-time data making information easier to access. But AI is adding something different: it interprets your narrative for the market.
For public companies, this matters across both institutional and retail investors. And the data shows how common it’s becoming.
Brunswick Group's 2026 investor survey found that 54% of institutional investors consider AI important to their investment research process. Additionally, four in ten say they trust AI-generated summaries of financial content as much as sell-side research and 46% say they are more likely to skip an earnings call and rely on an AI-generated summary instead.
Investing.com's March 2026 survey found that 62% of retail investors use AI to help inform investment decisions, 35% use it to better understand market news and 65% of those using AI say it has improved their investment performance.
The investor still makes the judgment, but AI can shape what they see first. And that’s the shift that really matters to me. Your job is not only to put accurate information into the market - it’s about working with your PR counterparts to ensure your story is consistent and still makes sense when AI connects the dots.
What Investor Engagement Means in the Era of AI Answers
If investors are now conducting research through AI-generated answers, the definition of engagement now needs to reach beyond clicks, meetings and earnings call questions. You also need to know whether the information provided in these answers is complete, current and true to what management is actually saying.
This is where I see a real distinction for IR when it comes to engagement. You can't control every answer an AI system gives, but you can control the quality of the information it uses. That means you’re managing more than disclosure – you're managing the conditions for accurate interpretation.
The same applies to the broader corporate narrative. You may have a clear view of your priorities, but if you and your PR colleagues describe them differently across channels, the message can lose its shape when someone tries to pull it all together.
When I was CFO, I saw firsthand how good IR reduces the amount of work an investor must do to understand the business. That principle matters even more when AI is doing work on an investor’s behalf.
For me, this comes down to three things:
- Findability: Can AI and investors quickly find your most current and authoritative information?
- Interpretability: Does your financial narrative mean the same thing across IR content such as earnings calls, filings and the IR website? Is it aligned with PR communications across earned and owned channels?
- Visibility: Do you know what investors are asking, what information AI is surfacing and where your story may need more clarity?
These aren't new responsibilities, they’re a natural extension of good IR. The difference is that you now need more visibility into what happens after company information enters the market.
How IR Teams Should Respond
When new technologies emerge, the first reaction is often to assume everything needs to change. I don't think that's the case here.
Investor relations has been built on principles that have stood the test of time: transparent disclosure, credible communication, consistency and access to management. Those fundamentals remain just as important today as they were a decade ago. What is changing is the environment around them.
As AI becomes a more common starting point for investor research, you do not need to rethink your purpose. You need to think differently about how you present, maintain and structure your information, ensuring alignment with your PR team.
It’s important to start with the basics. Use the same names for products and business segments across earnings calls, presentations, press releases and the IR website. Define financial metrics clearly, keep the information current and be consistent. A human investor can often make sense of small differences in language, but an AI system may not have the same context.
Structure matters too. For example, in an earnings release use clear headings, logical organization and well-labelled information to help investors find the right facts and understand how different pieces fit together. This also gives AI systems better source material to work from.
Then, there is the piece we haven’t had to think about in quite the same way before: visibility into how your narrative is being understood.
Can you see how AI interprets your earnings call and how its reflected in answers? Do you know what topics retail investors are curious about, and what they’d ask upon visiting your IR website? Can you see what content from your site AI systems are citing?
Those are the kinds of questions we’re helping to answer at Notified with how we’re evolving IR Hub™, the connected platform for all essential IR tools:
- Agentic Event Reporting gives IR teams a view into how AI interprets an earnings call, helping them compare what was surfaced with what management intended to communicate.
- The IR Website Chatbot provides insight into the questions investors are asking, which can point to gaps or areas that deserve more attention.
- AI Citation Reporting shows how AI platforms are finding and citing content from the IR website.
I don't see these capabilities as a replacement for IR judgment. Instead, they’re providing a deeper layer of insight so teams can better understand real-time market signals and respond accordingly.
Why AI Raises the Bar for IR Clarity
Ultimately, AI does not change the most important part of investor relations: trust is still built between people.
Brunswick’s same 2026 survey found that 77% of institutional investors consider human interaction with the C-suite important or very important, ahead of AI. And that reinforces an important point: investors may use technology for research, but they still want to hear from management, test their assumptions and decide whether they trust the people running the business.
AI can help investors understand a company quicker, but it cannot explain why leadership made a decision or give investors confidence in the people leading the company. These parts of investor relations remain deeply human.
What AI does change is the standard for the information investors see before those conversations. A confusing metric, a different message than the PR team is using or an unclear explanation can create questions before management can answer them.
Clarity has always been central to good investor relations, and AI raises the bar for it. The goal is not to communicate exclusively for AI - it’s to communicate clearly enough that investors can find the facts, understand the story and come to the conversation with confidence in what they already know.
AI has not replaced the value of a trusted management team. Instead, it’s raised the cost of a confusing financial narrative.
About Notified
Notified, Equiniti’s market engagement business, helps public relations and investor relations professionals earn attention, measure engagement and deliver results through its integrated platforms Content OS™ and IR Hub™. Click here to learn why more than 50% of the S&P 500 trust Notified’s solutions and services to drive demand and attract capital.
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