IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v86y2025ipes1544612325020318.html

Catering to AI audience: Firms’ disclosure strategies of AI-friendly reports

Author

Listed:
  • Qing, Xiaoquan
  • Zhao, Wenjing
  • Li, Liaoning

Abstract

The target audience of firms’ reports has expanded beyond humans in the age of AI. This paper demonstrates that firms’ AI endowment, advances in general AI technology and investors’ AI preferences collectively promote firms to cater to AI readers by releasing AI-friendly reports. Moreover, the above effect is more salient for firms with CEOs in the early stage of their tenure. As a result of AI-friendly disclosures, firms earn abnormal returns. This paper implies that while firms’ catering behavior is mostly harmless now, any decision to get higher returns by AI tools should be approached with caution.

Suggested Citation

  • Qing, Xiaoquan & Zhao, Wenjing & Li, Liaoning, 2025. "Catering to AI audience: Firms’ disclosure strategies of AI-friendly reports," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PE).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:86:y:2025:i:pe:s1544612325020318
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.108777
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325020318
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.108777?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sean Cao Robert H. Smith & Wei Jiang & Baozhong Yang J. Mack Robinson & Alan L Zhang & Tarun Ramadorai, 2023. "How to Talk When a Machine Is Listening: Corporate Disclosure in the Age of AI," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 36(9), pages 3603-3642.
    2. Wu, Di & Gao, Shenghao & Chan, Kam C. & Cheng, Xiaoke, 2022. "Do firms strategically respond to retail investors on the online interactive information disclosure platform?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    3. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:3:p:1125-1165 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Cao, Sean & Jiang, Wei & Wang, Junbo & Yang, Baozhong, 2024. "From Man vs. Machine to Man + Machine: The art and AI of stock analyses," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    5. Verrecchia, Robert E., 2001. "Essays on disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1-3), pages 97-180, December.
    6. Verrecchia, Robert E., 1983. "Discretionary disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 179-194, April.
    7. Verrecchia, Robert E., 1990. "Information quality and discretionary disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 365-380, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Langberg, Nisan & Sivaramakrishnan, K., 2008. "Voluntary disclosures and information production by analysts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 78-100, September.
    2. E. Cheynel & M. Liu-Watts, 2020. "A simple structural estimator of disclosure costs," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 201-245, March.
    3. Mouselli, Sulaiman & Jaafar, Aziz & Hussainey, Khaled, 2012. "Accruals quality vis-à-vis disclosure quality: Substitutes or complements?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 36-46.
    4. Anna Maria Biscotti & Eugenio D’Amico, 2016. "Theoretical foundation of IC disclosure strategies in high-tech industries," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 13(1), pages 1-25, February.
    5. Yinglin Huang & Claude Francoeur & Stephen Brammer, 2022. "What drives and curbs brownwashing?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 2518-2532, July.
    6. Rezaee, Zabihollah & Tuo, Ling, 2017. "Voluntary disclosure of non-financial information and its association with sustainability performance," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 47-59.
    7. Liangyan Cao & Wee‐Yeap Lau & Shahrin Saaid Shaharuddin, 2023. "Peer effect of proprietary information: A cost–benefit analysis of customer information disclosure," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(5), pages 2643-2656, July.
    8. Nikolaev, V. & van Lent, L.A.G.M., 2005. "The Endogeneity Bias in the Relation Between Cost-of-Debt Capital and Corporate Disclosure Policy," Discussion Paper 2005-67, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    9. Pae, Suil, 2002. "Discretionary disclosure, efficiency, and signal informativeness," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 279-311, August.
    10. Banerjee, Snehal & Breon-Drish, Bradyn & Kaniel, Ron & Kremer, Ilan, 2023. "On the voluntary disclosure of redundant information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    11. Jennifer Francis & Dhananjay Nanda & Per Olsson, 2008. "Voluntary Disclosure, Earnings Quality, and Cost of Capital," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 46(1), pages 53-99, March.
    12. Mark Zakota, 2025. "EPA scrutiny and voluntary environmental disclosures," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 30(4), pages 3514-3557, December.
    13. Jinhyeok Ra & Woochan Kim, 2023. "Perils of limiting the coverage of mandatory pay disclosure: The Korean experience," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(9-10), pages 1633-1670, October.
    14. Nikolaev, V. & van Lent, L.A.G.M., 2005. "The Endogeneity Bias in the Relation Between Cost-of-Debt Capital and Corporate Disclosure Policy," Other publications TiSEM 5960a342-0adc-4f85-bf87-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Nagar, Venky & Nanda, Dhananjay & Wysocki, Peter, 2003. "Discretionary disclosure and stock-based incentives," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1-3), pages 283-309, January.
    16. Stephan Hollander & Maarten Pronk & Erik Roelofsen, 2010. "Does Silence Speak? An Empirical Analysis of Disclosure Choices During Conference Calls," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 48(3), pages 531-563, June.
    17. Nikolaev, V. & van Lent, L.A.G.M., 2005. "The endogeneity bias in the relation between cost-of-debt capital and corporate disclosure policy," Other publications TiSEM 04869b30-e8a9-4ecf-84ae-6, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Eti Einhorn, 2005. "The Nature of the Interaction between Mandatory and Voluntary Disclosures," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(4), pages 593-621, September.
    19. Beyer, Anne & Cohen, Daniel A. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Walther, Beverly R., 2010. "The financial reporting environment: Review of the recent literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 296-343, December.
    20. Mark Bagnoli & Susan G. Watts, 2007. "Financial Reporting and Supplemental Voluntary Disclosures," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 45(5), pages 885-913, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:86:y:2025:i:pe:s1544612325020318. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.