The debate around AI in communications is often framed as technological disruption. In capital markets, the issue is more precise. The question is not whether AI can write. The question is whether AI-assisted communication preserves credibility. In Investor Relations, credibility is not cosmetic. It is more cumulative. And once impaired, it is costly to rebuild.

The Economic Case for AI Editing Is Already Settled

Experimental evidence from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrates that access to generative AI meaningfully reduces drafting time while improving baseline output quality. In structured professional writing tasks, time fell by approximately 40%, while average quality improved by roughly 18%.

Most IR material is not creative authorship. It is disciplined synthesis:

Generative AI performs well in precisely this “mid-level drafting” domain.

Field evidence reinforces the point. A large-scale study published through the National Bureau of Economic Research observed productivity gains of approximately 14–15% when generative AI tools were deployed in customer support environments, with the largest improvements among less experienced workers.

Usability research from the Nielsen Norman Group reports similar task-time efficiencies in knowledge work settings. Adoption has followed predictably. Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index indicates that 75% of global knowledge workers now use AI at work. Even the UK Government has reported measurable time savings following generative AI trials within the civil service.

In short: AI editing is not experimental. It is diffusing rapidly because it improves speed & baseline quality at scale.

Once adoption becomes widespread, it ceases to confer advantage. It becomes infrastructure.

Editing, Not Creation, Is the Strategic Lever

The most consequential use case in Investor Relations is not content generation. It is editorial alignment.

For global issuers, the challenge is rarely eloquence. It is coherence.

Inconsistency erodes trust far more quickly than imperfect prose.

AI editing, deployed judiciously, can function as an institutional alignment mechanism. It standardises clarity and reduces internal variance.

But here the trust tension emerges.

As Polish Becomes Cheaper, Accountability Becomes More Salient

If every earnings release becomes smoother, stakeholders inevitably recalibrate their filters.

They begin to ask: Who stands behind these words?

Empirical research suggests that perceived AI involvement can introduce a trust penalty in certain contexts.

Oliver Schilke’s working paper, The Transparency Dilemma, reports across multiple experimental settings that explicit disclosure of AI use can reduce trust, driven by perceived legitimacy and ownership concerns.

Similarly, research by Altay and Gilardi in PNAS Nexus finds that headlines labelled “AI-generated” are perceived as less accurate and less worthy of sharing, irrespective of their truth value. Studies by Benjamin Toff and Felix Simon reach comparable conclusions in journalism contexts.

Maurice Jakesch and colleagues demonstrate that individuals are rated as less trustworthy when audiences believe their self-presentations were AI-written. Notably, further work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that humans are poor at reliably detecting AI-generated text, yet they still carry strong intuitions about what “AI-like” language signals.

The trust response is therefore not dependent on accurate detection. It is responsive to perceived genericness, over-optimisation, or lack of ownership. In Investor Relations, those signals are consequential.

Why Investor Relations Is Uniquely Sensitive

The Appropriate Governance Model

The practical answer is not abstinence from AI, nor indiscriminate enthusiasm. It is allocation of responsibility and trusting seasoned professionals who have built an understanding of ‘Investor Trust’ pre-AI.

AI should be deployed to industrialise mechanics:

Human leadership must retain ownership of trust-bearing elements:

AI can improve the sentence. But only management and seasoned IR can assume responsibility for its meaning.

The Strategic Frontier/ Authentic Efficiency

AI editing is becoming embedded in global communications because the economic logic is compelling and the productivity evidence is substantial. Yet as polish becomes ubiquitous, authenticity becomes comparatively scarce, and therefore more valuable. The competitive advantage in Investor Relations will not belong to those who automate most aggressively. It will belong to those who combine operational efficiency with unmistakable human ownership. In capital markets, credibility compounds quietly over time. Technology may accelerate drafting, it does not substitute for trust.

Authored by:

Shankhini Saha
Director, Dickenson World

Visit www.dickensonworld.com to learn more about our services and how we can help streamline your corporate reporting process.