Are Companies Taking AI Risks Seriously? A Systematic Analysis of Companies' AI Risk Disclosures in SEC 10-K forms

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Marin, Lucas G. Uberti-Bona, Rijsbosch, Bram, Spanakis, Gerasimos, Kollnig, Konrad
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Marin, Lucas G. Uberti-Bona
Rijsbosch, Bram
Spanakis, Gerasimos
Kollnig, Konrad
author_facet Marin, Lucas G. Uberti-Bona
Rijsbosch, Bram
Spanakis, Gerasimos
Kollnig, Konrad
contents As Artificial Intelligence becomes increasingly central to corporate strategies, concerns over its risks are growing too. In response, regulators are pushing for greater transparency in how companies identify, report and mitigate AI-related risks. In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) repeatedly warned companies to provide their investors with more accurate disclosures of AI-related risks; recent enforcement and litigation against companies' misleading AI claims reinforce these warnings. In the EU, new laws - like the AI Act and Digital Services Act - introduced additional rules on AI risk reporting and mitigation. Given these developments, it is essential to examine if and how companies report AI-related risks to the public. This study presents the first large-scale systematic analysis of AI risk disclosures in SEC 10-K filings, which require public companies to report material risks to their company. We analyse over 30,000 filings from more than 7,000 companies over the past five years, combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. Our findings reveal a sharp increase in the companies that mention AI risk, up from 4% in 2020 to over 43% in the most recent 2024 filings. While legal and competitive AI risks are the most frequently mentioned, we also find growing attention to societal AI risks, such as cyberattacks, fraud, and technical limitations of AI systems. However, many disclosures remain generic or lack details on mitigation strategies, echoing concerns raised recently by the SEC about the quality of AI-related risk reporting. To support future research, we publicly release a web-based tool for easily extracting and analysing keyword-based disclosures across SEC filings.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_19313
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
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spellingShingle Are Companies Taking AI Risks Seriously? A Systematic Analysis of Companies' AI Risk Disclosures in SEC 10-K forms
Marin, Lucas G. Uberti-Bona
Rijsbosch, Bram
Spanakis, Gerasimos
Kollnig, Konrad
Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
As Artificial Intelligence becomes increasingly central to corporate strategies, concerns over its risks are growing too. In response, regulators are pushing for greater transparency in how companies identify, report and mitigate AI-related risks. In the US, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) repeatedly warned companies to provide their investors with more accurate disclosures of AI-related risks; recent enforcement and litigation against companies' misleading AI claims reinforce these warnings. In the EU, new laws - like the AI Act and Digital Services Act - introduced additional rules on AI risk reporting and mitigation. Given these developments, it is essential to examine if and how companies report AI-related risks to the public. This study presents the first large-scale systematic analysis of AI risk disclosures in SEC 10-K filings, which require public companies to report material risks to their company. We analyse over 30,000 filings from more than 7,000 companies over the past five years, combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. Our findings reveal a sharp increase in the companies that mention AI risk, up from 4% in 2020 to over 43% in the most recent 2024 filings. While legal and competitive AI risks are the most frequently mentioned, we also find growing attention to societal AI risks, such as cyberattacks, fraud, and technical limitations of AI systems. However, many disclosures remain generic or lack details on mitigation strategies, echoing concerns raised recently by the SEC about the quality of AI-related risk reporting. To support future research, we publicly release a web-based tool for easily extracting and analysing keyword-based disclosures across SEC filings.
title Are Companies Taking AI Risks Seriously? A Systematic Analysis of Companies' AI Risk Disclosures in SEC 10-K forms
topic Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19313