The end users of your report haven’t changed. But how they interact with your report has.
Though in many ways annual reports are constantly evolving, the fundamentals do not change very often. Whether that’s the topics covered – business model, strategy, performance, risk, governance, etc. – or the format.
Print numbers were already dwindling under financial and environmental pressures in the late 2010s. Then the pandemic came along and killed the printed annual report for good. Reports quickly shifted to “digital first” approaches in awareness that the audience was primarily online, but the PDF that once would’ve been printed hung on anyway.
Microsites and interactive online reports were touted as a viable alternative long before the pandemic, with the better user experience afforded by embedded video and engaging interactive elements as the key selling point.
Though not all audiences consume annual reports in the same way, the PDF has stuck around for a number of reasons. It is timestamped, which provides clarity and aids the reader. It is easier to navigate as it has a clear order from front to back and is self-contained. It can more easily contain a distinct design. It is familiar, understood and easier to use for all audiences.
As businesses were sensibly told to publish across all channels to guarantee maximum impact, and I imagine many others kept just opening the PDF to find what we were looking for, whether there was a digital option or not.
What is AI’s impact on reporting?
Unsurprisingly, it is artificial intelligence (AI) that is now changing the game and driving a new focus towards structured, HTML-based reporting that AI can discover and read as easily as humans.
Businesses are investing in AI solutions across their operations and simultaneously having to adapt their strategies in response to AI’s growing presence, including in marketing and communications. That’s because AI has altered how people find and consume company information. Perhaps most importantly, AI has become the default research tool for investors and analysts. In fact, AI is no longer just a research assistant, it’s an intermediary, a channel of its own that has to be considered.
Annual reports and sustainability reports remain the key opportunities to communicate your position and progress each year. Research suggests key audiences are increasingly engaging with them indirectly through AI summaries or trying to find exactly what they’re looking for by asking AI.
This shift brings new challenges and considerations to reporting:
- Catering for human and AI audience needs: For those of us charged with creating impactful reports, we now have to consider if, where and how AI is going to find and interpret our carefully crafted narrative and try to make sure the information is able to make it to the end user intact.
- Why PDFs create problems: Though a traditional PDF has been designed to work for human readers, it confuses AI. When AI is confused, it tries to find answers from external sources, which can lead to incorrect, outdated or fabricated information appearing in AI searches.
- The advantage of HTML reporting: Companies with structured, HTML-based online annual reports are proven to be cited more frequently than those relying primarily on PDF reports, with the results more accurate as well.
In some ways this isn’t anything new. A good or bad design has always had the power to aid or scupper the narrative in a report. Now it’s structure, tags and context cues that determine how effectively disclosures can navigate the AI filter.
Given the huge investment in AI across the business world, discoverable and dynamic reporting seems likely to stick around. It will be interesting to see whether the scrappy PDF report can continue to hang on.
Get in touch for reporting support
We write annual reports that deliver engaging narratives for human readers, with optimisations designed to feed AI systems the key information they need to analyse your content effectively. Whether you’re leaning towards a microsite format, or want to stay loyal to PDFs, start the conversation here.
Tim
For 15 years Tim has been planning and writing content in corporate communications. He brings a wealth of experience and a proven track record in delivering impactful and award-winning reports. As our reporting lead, he helps keep Stratton Craig on top of the evolving regulatory environment and continues to meet the shifting needs of both clients and their audiences. Find out more here.
