AI for IR Forum

Friday, December 1, 2023

etc.venues 360 Madison Avenue, New York

Building an AI-Powered IR strategy

With an increasing number of investors, governance and corporate communications teams adopting machine-learning and generative AI to support their day-to-day decision-making, it is critical for IR teams to follow suit. However, at this nascent stage, there are a lot of questions about the ethical use of AI, accuracy, privacy concerns and more.

The AI for IR forum was designed to provide IR teams at publicly listed companies with a blueprint for the responsible use of AI to supercharge their IR program.

Featuring AI veterans from the buy side, experts from tech companies, and issuers who have successfully implemented AI, the forum provided actionable checklists and best practice booklets on how to successfully implement an AI-powered IR strategy in 2024. View the agenda and speaker sections below to find out more about what was discussed.


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Agenda

Click here to view the 2023 agenda.

Timings on the agenda are shown in Eastern Time (ET)

  • 08:15 AM
    Registration, refreshments and networking

  • 08:55 AM
    Welcome to the forum

  • 09:00 AM
    The importance of AI in the capital markets

    AI is transforming the capital markets, beyond the practice of investor relations. Understanding how AI can be adopted by key stakeholders in the capital markets is critical for IROs as they integrate AI into their strategy. This opening session will set the scene for the day and provide a strategic overview of AI’s emerging role within the market.

    ● Defining AI within the context of the capital markets, from investor relations to the buy side, sell side and corporate access
    ● The case for an AI-powered IR program: Why an AI co-pilot provides a competitive advantage
    ● The future of AI in the capital markets: New capabilities on the horizon and critical trends to watch

    Darrell Heaps, founder and CEO, Q4

  • 09:25 AM
    Harnessing the power of AI for IR: Opportunities, applications, and implications

    The discussion will center on the key trends, risks and considerations for IROs and give a bird’s eye view of integrating AI as a driver of efficiency, insight and value creation across the investor relations function.

    ● High-impact applications: Prioritizing AI for content creation, earnings, sentiment analysis and targeting
    ● Risks and implementation challenges: Data privacy, compliance and change management
    ● Leveraging AI’s potential while proactively managing the risks and ethical concerns
    ● The evolution of AI and the opportunities it presents for investor relations

    Moderator: Steve Wade, head of content, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
    Adam Borgatti, senior vice president, corporate development & investor relations, Aecon Group
    Darrell Heaps, founder and CEO, Q4

  • 10:00 AM
    AI as a stakeholder: Implications for IR in an AI driven capital market ecosystem

    The buy-side has been using AI to inform their decisions for years and it continues to shape the investment landscape. We look inside the buy-side’s AI adoption to discover how investors harness AI and what IR teams can do to ensure that their information is found, and correctly interpreted by buysiders who use AI. The panel will discuss:

    • How the capital markets use AI to make investment decisions and gather information
    • The risks companies face when investors and rating agencies utilize AI in their analysis
    • Techniques used, such as NLP, to extract insights from the information put out by IR teams, such as earnings calls, presentations, reports and news
    • Advice on how to best adapt your disclosures and earnings calls in an AI-driven world

    Moderator: Lauren McDonald, conference producer, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
    Grant Bartucci, corporate access & research
    Bruce Kahn, senior portfolio manager, Shelton Sustainable Equity Fund

  • 10:25 AM
    Networking break

  • 10:55 AM
    Best practice: Ethics, compliance and risk management for various AI use cases

    Adopting new technologies like AI demands proactive governance. This session will equip IROs to integrate AI responsibly and minimize regulatory, reputational and data risks. Panelists will outline best practices for transparency, including:

    • Actionable strategies to deploy AI as a trusted advisor rather than a ‘black box.’
    • How to ensure accuracy and prevent bias while protecting confidential data
    • Framework to develop a robust AI policy and become stewards of responsible AI adoption
    • Embedding accountability at every step of an AI-assisted investor engagement process
    • Mitigating risks by ensuring third-party providers are also protected and compliant

    Moderator: Steve Wade, head of content, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
    Michael Marks, investor relations, Vizio
    Quentin Weber, director, investor relations, WSP Global

  • 11:25 AM
    AI for IR lightning pitch

    Hear from the very best service providers in IR and learn in just 90 seconds what innovations and developments they are making to help harness the power of AI for your company.

  • 11:35 AM
    Level up your content with AI: Tools and tactics for impactful communications

    This hands-on session will showcase AI’s immense potential for streamlining and strengthening investor communications. Discover easy wins and techniques to harness natural language generation and creative AI for highly engaging content, including:

    • What resources, budget and skillset do you need to kickstart your AI content creation?
    • Delivering consistent messaging: Evaluating content accuracy, privacy and mitigating risks
    • An overview of the latest AI writing and design tools tailored for IROs – what’s right for you?
    • Identifying the workflows and use cases that benefit the most from AI assistance
    • Tailoring and optimizing earnings scripts, visual presentations and social posts with AI

    Moderator: Lauren McDonald, conference producer, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
    Jason Fooks, senior vice president, investor relations, Brookfield Asset Management
    RJ Hottovy, head of analytical research, Placer.ai
    Emily Lau, investor relations and corporate communications professional, Enthusiast Gaming

  • 12:20 PM
    AI for IR lightning pitch

    Hear from the very best service providers in IR and learn in just 90 seconds what innovations and developments they are making to help harness the power of AI for your company.

  • 12:30 PM
    Lunch

  • 13:30 PM
    The importance of language in machine-readable disclosures

    Disclosures are critical to get information out to the buyside and inform both voting and investing decisions. Earnings calls, proxy statements, annual reports and press-releases keep portfolio managers and analysts informed on the financial health and outlook for your business, however, the need to cover more companies mean that investors are turning to AI and web-crawlers to filter information from these reports.

    This session discusses how IR teams can adapt their disclosures to align with how investors are looking for information to ensure your critical business updates are not only seen, but interpreted correctly. Join this session to discuss:

    • The ways that investors are implementing AI into their processes, and the implications are for IR teams
    • How AI works in analyzing and digesting company information, and ways to overcome risks such as missing critical information, or mis-interpretation of information
    • Proven strategies to increase your visibility and accuracy of information in an AI driven world

    Moderator: Lauren McDonald, conference producer, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
    Christopher Blake, executive director of innovation & operations, S&P Global
    Roger Freeman, co-head, data science, Neuberger Berman

  • 14:15 PM
    Hitting the ground running: Actionable first steps to replicate in your IR team

    This session will offer multiple perspectives and examples of how an IR team can practically begin integrating AI into their IR strategy. Discover from experts in the field what steps you could take to immediately to jumpstart your AI journey. We will cover:

    • Assessing what options exist for IR teams and what specific tools are available to be utilised
    • Assessing your current IR capabilities to identify the areas where AI could add value
    • A beginners guide to adopting and implementing new AI strategies and functions

    Moderator: Lauren McDonald, conference producer, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
    Sherif El-Azzazi, former investor relations officer, Brookfield Renewable
    Kam Mangat, vice president, investor relations and corporate strategy, NEXE Innovations
    Dan Wayne, former investor relations specialist, ITT

  • 14:45 PM
    Networking break

  • 15:15 PM
    Mini-workshop and roundtables: Hands-on strategies for adoption and integration

    In this interactive session, attendees will synthesize learnings into an actionable checklist to hit the ground running on deploying AI. Through group collaboration and exercises, IROs will blueprint an AI implementation roadmap that’s tailored to their IR program, including:

    • Assessing and prioritizing AI opportunities using a “now, near, far” framework
    • Workshopping real-world risk scenarios and developing policies for responsible adoption
    • Outlining governance best practices for ethical, compliant AI integration
    • Identifying the top three AI techniques to enhance targeting, analysis, content generation
    • Restructuring team roles, skills, and workflows in an AI future
  • 15:45 PM
    Learn from the vanguard: Leveraging AI to drive better collaboration

    In this joint session, we’ll look at how AI is enabling smarter collaboration between IR and governance teams. Where do the opportunities lie for AI in the overlap between governance and IR work flows, particularly around ESG and shareholder communications, and how are early adopters approaching the pitfalls and the potential of an integrated approach? This session will cover: 

    • Real world case studies and success stories of specific use of AI to improve collaboration between IR and governance teams 
    • Using AI to identify best practices around sustainability and shareholder communications  
    • Advice on how to replicate success in your own team   

    Moderator: Steve Wade, head of content, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
    Gregg Lampf, vice president of investor relations, Ciena
    Mike Stiller, managing director, new growth initiatives, Nasdaq 

  • 16:15 PM
    Closing keynote: Next steps, possibilities and the road ahead for AI and IR

    This session will consolidate all the learnings from the day into a prescriptive framework for thoughtfully leveraging AI as a trusted advisor and a new source of delivering shareholder value. We discuss the immense possibilities that an AI-empowered future presents and what the IR and governance worlds could look like in 10 years 

    • Reviewing top applications and use cases transforming IR and corporate governance in the coming months 
    • Actionable next steps for piloting and adopting AI-enabled best practices responsibly 
    • A vision for how AI will reshape workflows, teams, and engagement in the next 3-5 years 
    • Longer-term projections on AI’s potential to redefine analyses, communications, and strategy  
    • Cultivating a forward-looking mindset focused on opportunities, not threats 

    Moderator: Steve Wade, head of content, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
    Erik Carlson, COO and CFO, Notified
     

  • 16:45 PM
    Closing remarks

  • 17:00 PM
    Drinks reception and networking

  • 19:00 PM
    End of event

Speakers

To inquire about future speaking opportunities, contact [email protected] or +44 7763 851 425


What attendees say about our events

"Great to connect with peers again and great content."

Sempra

"Quality of attendees made the difference."

Agilent Technologies

"The speakers were very knowledgeable on the topics that they were discussing."

The Home Depot

"The guests and content are fantastic. Really appreciate all the work that goes into getting these sessions together."

Nano One Materials

"The sessions were moderated very well with a quick pace. The panellists were well prepared and provided relevant insights."

Murphy Oil Corporation

Who attends our event

Our attendees are leading IR practitioners with an established track record and strategic IR role within their company.

Below is a sample list of attendees who have joined our events in the past:

Job title Company Job title Company
Director, IR Vuzix Senior vice president, IR Comcast
Director, IR General Electric Senior vice president, IR Coty
Director, IR Flushing Financial Senior vice president, IR Estee Lauder
Director, IR ORIX Corporation Senior vice president, IR CVS Health
Director, IR Jushi Holdings Vice president Hannon Armstrong
Senior director, head of IR Lantheus Holdings Vice president, head of IR Starbucks
Senior director, IR Becton Dickinson Vice president, IR Ingersoll Rand
Senior director, IR & corporate communications TCR2 Therapeutics Vice president, IR Quotient Technology
Senior vice president, director of IR Chubb Vice president, IR Roku
Senior vice president, head of IR & treasury Nielsen Vice president, IR Campbell
Senior vice president, IR SmartRent Vice president, IR WW International
Senior vice president, IR CACI Vice president, IR Ciena

 

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Become a partner

Why partner with us? 

The AI Forum brings together some of the most influential people in the IR community.

The event offers an effective approach to targeting clients when they are exploring how they can implement AI as part of their IR strategy and shareholder communication practice. Through our unrivalled knowledge of the subject matters and commitment to in-depth agenda research, our events are guaranteed to attract a qualified audience.

The unique buzz we create at our events makes them multi-faceted and highly interactive, with great engagement, particularly with decision-makers at listed companies. This allows our partners to have meaningful conversations with corporates who are deciding which parts of their programs to invest in, which service providers to engage and which consultants to retain. By partnering with us on an event, you can generate leads, showcase your thought leadership and position yourselves as the partner of choice.

We’d love to chat with you about how you can get in front of a truly engaged and motivated audience at the AI Forum. Get in touch with Ian Richman or call on +1 212 430 6895.

Partners

Coalition for the homeless

IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence are long-term supporters of the Coalition for the Homeless. The Coalition is doing all in its power to ensure that homeless New Yorkers get the help and protection they need.

Thank you to our attendees for bringing items to the event to be donated to those in need through the coaliation.

For further information about their work, please visit coalitionforthehomeless.org

Venue

We were delighted to host the event at:

etc.venues
360 Madison Avenue
New York
NY 10017

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