More than three-fifths of investors view the accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence as critical to value creation, while they also recognise the importance of managing risks, according to PwC’s 2023 Global Investor Survey.
Almost three fifths (59 per cent) of investors identified technological change as the factor most likely to influence how companies create value over the next three years.
Furthermore, investors ranked innovation and emerging technologies – including AI, the metaverse and blockchain – among their top five priorities when evaluating companies.
Nonetheless, 86 per cent saw AI presenting considerable risk from a ”moderate” to “very large extent” when it came to data security and privacy; insufficient governance and controls (84 per cent); misinformation (83 per cent); and bias and discrimination (72 per cent).
The survey – now in its third consecutive year – queried 345 investors and analysts across geographies, assets classes and investment approaches for insights into the factors that most affect the companies they invest in and cover.
James Chalmers, global assurance leader at PwC UK, added: “We are moving from a period of awareness-raising around the importance of climate and technological change to a time where investors are increasingly asking specific and tough questions about how companies are addressing those issues in their strategy, how they assess risk and opportunity and what is truly material for them.
“In this context, corporate reporting needs to continue to evolve so it provides reliable, consistent and comparable information [that] investors – and other stakeholders – can rely on.”
The paper, by PWC, also found that 94 per cent of investors said corporate reporting on sustainability performance contained unsupported claims.
Three quarters said that how a company managed sustainability-related risks and opportunities was an important factor in their investment decisions, although this was down 4 per cent on last year.
