# Study finds AI risk mentions in UK annual reports rise to 41.2% by 2025

Digest AI · Research · published 2026-10-05T04:00:00Z

Canonical: https://digestai.news/story/study-finds-ai-risk-mentions-in-uk-annual-reports-rise-to-41-2-by-2025

## Summary

The AI Risk Observatory paper analyses 9,821 annual reports from 1,362 UK‑listed firms covering 2020‑2025 (with partial 2026 data). Using a reproducible two‑stage classification pipeline validated against 474 human‑annotated passages, the authors extract references to AI risk, AI adoption and vendor mentions.

The analysis shows three clear patterns. First, the share of reports that mention AI risk climbs from 2.8% in 2020 to 41.2% in 2025, while AI adoption disclosures rise from 13.8% to 45.2%; vendor references cluster around a small set of providers led by Microsoft. Second, disclosure rates differ by market segment and Critical National Infrastructure sector, with AIM‑listed firms and sectors such as Energy and Data Infrastructure lagging behind Main Market firms. Third, substantive risk disclosure remains rare: only 4.3% of the 2025 reports that flag AI risk contain content the authors classify as substantive, and harm disclosures appear in just seven reports across the whole corpus.

## Key points

- AI risk mentions grew from 2.8% in 2020 to 41.2% in 2025 across 9,821 UK annual reports.
- AI adoption disclosures rose from 13.8% to 45.2%; vendor mentions cluster around Microsoft.
- Only 4.3% of reports with AI risk mentions contain substantive disclosure; seven reports note actual harms.

## Why it matters

The findings reveal a rapid increase in AI‑related reporting but a persistent lack of substantive risk discussion, highlighting gaps in corporate transparency that could affect regulators, investors and societal resilience.

## Sources

1. [The AI Risk Observatory: What Can We Learn from AI Disclosures in Annual Reports About Societal Resilience?](https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.02281) (arXiv cs.AI, 2026-10-05, primary source)

## Cite

Digest AI, "Study finds AI risk mentions in UK annual reports rise to 41.2% by 2025", 5 October 2026, https://digestai.news/story/study-finds-ai-risk-mentions-in-uk-annual-reports-rise-to-41-2-by-2025

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