1. Your ESEF digital report is the mandatory version, not the PDF
Your official annual report is your digital ESEF report. This is an HTML version of your content, enhanced with AI-optimised tagging. Your content is no longer dictated by page length and, if created correctly, it is easily navigable and accessible to AI search tools.
When done well, the online ESEF is the most engaging version of the report (and as easy to use as a website). AI craves this format – accessing it to discover the detail and compare it with your peers. The more detail that is provided digitally, the better, as far as AI is concerned.
This means PDF page count is no longer as important as it used to be. The main format drivers have become AI-readability, user experience, accessibility, and accuracy of content.
2. How many reports do you print these days?
Requests for printed copies have been in decline for many years, and the financial and environmental costs of print and mailing are now hard to justify. Now that filing and publishing requirements are no longer driven by the print format, report design and production processes are evolving.
Shifting the process to digital-first design software (for all output formats) not only improves how reports are created, it transforms how information is presented and delivers reports with Search Engine Optimisation (Google SEO) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO for AI).
3. AI is hungry for accurate, traceable information sources
All systems now depend on accurate inputs – you put rubbish in, you get rubbish out.
With AI, this has never been more true. Its ‘hallucinations’ are caused not by the AI tools, but by a lack of high quality sources. This is why digital corporate reporting is becoming so important – it is the most trusted source of detailed, rich information which companies publish.
However, we have a problem. If we create annual reports using print-first software (based only on PDFs) then AI cannot reliably read the reports. AI has to seek digital data online, usually finding it in random, unreliable sources.
Many studies have found that if the annual report is created using a print-first PDF process, AI tools are forced to make many more guesses. To try to sense-check its answers, AI tools will go to unreliable and untraceable third-party data sources. However, if the report is created in HTML-based systems and optimised with data tagging, AI uses the digital version as its definitive source. This is one of the many benefits of the ESEF format when done well and placed online.
Important: This does not replace the PDF format as a deliverable. It simply requires a workflow shift from print design software to digital design software.
4. Communication and compliance both matter (and can be complementary)
According to research by the Quoted Companies Alliance the average FTSE 100 annual report now runs to 152,000 words, 27 per cent longer than five years ago. ESG disclosures alone have grown by 236%. The Quoted Companies Alliance has noted, with some understatement, that sheer volume is now obscuring rather than revealing information.
For us at Friend, this is fundamentally about the quality and clarity of the information and data in reports. Throughout the history of reporting, the balance between data, disclosure, understandable narrative and easy to read presentation has been key. When this balance is missing, crucial meaning is lost.
Rich context and narratives are essential to the understanding of data. As ever, concise, clear, understandable reporting should be the goal, but this is about avoiding duplication and waffle, not about removing crucial detail.
With the rising power of online AI-readable reporting, many of the ‘content bloat’ challenges of increasing disclosure are being solved. And as print volumes have reduced, page count is no longer the practical problem it once was. As a result, the drivers behind content choices are changing, and page count is becoming a less important measure than clarity of message and online readability.
Evidence remains just as important as disclosure, and as AI mines this detail, it may become more important than ever. Real stories of successes and challenges drive engagement with content and, as mentioned above, add clarity and insight to the narrative and the disclosures.
There are some very real advantages to digitisation. As reporting is enhanced by new capabilities, stories that bring the strategy to life can use rich media such as interactivity, film and animation (and do not add extra words or pages – and instead transform understanding), further attracting audiences to the deeper digital content.
5. Forget about size. Reporting is all about relevance.
Annual reporting is a critical tool in setting out the performance and direction of a business – providing a definitive explanation of your strategy and using data and operational evidence to prove everything is on track. It contains crucial evidence your stakeholders need to form their opinions and make their decisions – investors, customers, employees, prospects, suppliers, regulators, partners and more.
Relevance is the most important criteria when deciding on content – delivering what matters most to your stakeholders, and how to help them access and understand this content. AI tools, user analytics and digitisation now enable all reporting decisions to be led by insight into stakeholders’ needs, not arbitrary page count targets.
AI means that summaries of information are now possible in seconds. This doesn’t mean verbose content is now OK. Clarity matters as much as ever – you still use clear writing and design to elevate the most important points. But you start to think more about how the reader (whether human or AI) will interact with the content, and use tagging and related links to aid the drive for brevity.
The quality and accuracy of reporting content remains vital. Give your critical messages room to breathe. Link them directly to evidence and performance where relevant. Be confident in selecting the most important messages for your strategic story, so the salient points are easily understood by your reader.
When you provide the full report in a digital format, your headline messages can be better linked to detailed evidence – which both readers and AI can find and understand easily.
Finally, as AI tools are now the biggest access point for all corporate information, we need to give AI all the help it needs to find and analyse annual reports accurately. This is where iXBRL tagging becomes important too. Consistent, comparable tagging of data ensures AI is analysing information that it is traceable back to the company itself, not third-party sources.
If AI cannot access your report digitally, it will go elsewhere to find its answers. Usually with unwanted consequences.
So, how does this affect the page count conversation?
We recommend some simple steps to ensure content decisions are made with the key drivers of AI, digitisation, compliance and engagement in mind. Not arbitrary page count measures.
→ Remember – the ESEF digital report is the mandatory version, not the PDF.
→ AI tools have become the gate keepers – they crave an online version of your whole annual report.
→ AI can read a well structured online ESEF report much more accurately than a PDF.
→ Discuss with your agency – move to a native digital-first design process to replace print design software tools.
→ Ensure your official digital report is optimised and published online – for AI to access and analyse.
→ Content matters - include supporting evidence and case studies to drive the reader to the detail, using digital capabilities to your advantage.
→ Always focus on relevance and quality – try to avoid waffle and duplication.
The native digital design process is recommended by the FRC in their guidance on digital reporting compliance and best practice.
Friend Studio offers companies simple efficient options for the shift to digital processes delivering AI-optimised, fully compliant reporting.
If you would like to discuss how we can help you transform your reporting, we’d love to hear from you.
