What’s IN and OUT for IR in 2025?
What’s OUT:
BUZZWORDS of all kinds (thrilled, groundbreaking, fascinating, everything!) In corporate life, nothing typically is that fancy – and it sounds so much like generative AI… see the next bullet…
AI/COPY-PASTE -releases, AI-driven bot help services (aarrggh), AI-written blogs (with 5 numbered topics), AI-written quotes: I’m so delighted to… I’m thrilled to get Mr. X onboard…
A SLOWISH, REACTIVE APPROACH As the world spins faster and faster, particularly if there is a crisis (we could not forecast) going on, we need to react in minutes, not in hours. Get your crisis communications in place.
LENGTHY COMMUNICATION How many of us really have time to read those lengthy texts or listen to loooong webcasts? Even if AI helps a lot to summarize… still. I know, this one is hard.
ANALYST MASSAGE. Normally we would say Swedish analyst massage, however, Finnish analyst massage also exists. As we all have woken up for this with open calls and else… Let’s keep those calls open and accessible for everyone.
PENDING:
CSRD: As the first real CSRD reports will be published in early 2025, we’ll see how they look and feel, and most importantly, do they fill the gap for investors. How will the reports be perceived by investors? At least, it seems like the regulation tsunami for ESG is mostly behind us.
What’s IN:
GENUINITY. In the world of AI, at least I believe that human, in-person communication will be valued even more than it is today. How you meet people, and get the feeling that someone is really interested in serving YOU. Listening and communicating.
SCENARIO ANALYSIS (once again, still and ongoing), depending on the industry of course. Never really goes out of fashion. Only the scenarios become harder to predict..
TRANSPARENCY & EQUALITY for all investors (not just the largest ones). Even further than today. There is no other way to put this than… same information to everyone.
STORYTELLING In the stream of information flow, stories are what make us stand out. Also in IR, even if it does not seem to fit there at all.
BEING IN CONTROL. Doing things by yourself, and not depending on external parties. Creating the “pull” effect instead of “push”.
GENERATIVE AI. Yes, continuously so, with some reservations of course. For communications professionals, creating, translating or language checking have never been easier than they are now. Yes, there are some IR-related cons, actually multiple of them, as well as many other cons as well, however, keeping an open mind and common sense will get you somewhere, but the next few years will show, how far.
SOURCE CRITIC. People have and understandably will become even more sensitive about how pieces of information are created. Not just because of AI hallucinating, but also due to several other factors as well. Let’s remember to check our sources.
TRYING NEW TECHNOLOGIES. Eagerly exploring new technologies to do one’s work even better and better serve investors, both online and in the “real” life. On both sides of the table, investors and IROs are eagerly exploring new ways to do things. It's because we may have noticed the old medicine does not work as well as it used to.
Some other OUTs, or INs? Your thoughts?