Weekly Roundup: IR in an AI-enhanced, Attention-driven Market
Company-shaped AI software, scalable corporate access formats, ads in AI, and an open IPO window
Investors’ toolkits are getting super-powered by AI, and that changes the job for IR and Comms. Your stack needs to shift from off-the-shelf SaaS to bespoke, workflow-specific tools focused on outcomes. All while your message needs to scale across digital video, social, newsletters, and podcasts for institutional and retail investors.
Discovery is moving into AI assistants and GPTs where ads will sit next to answers, making paid distribution a part of investor communications strategy. The IPO window is open, momentum is building, and attention is scarce, which means your earnings and announcements need to travel farther, faster, to reach retail investors and pros alike.
What’s inside:
1) Investors’ toolkits are being super-powered. Why bespoke AI beats generic SaaS, and what that means for IR and retail investors.
2) Corporate access is evolving. Scalable public formats that reach all audiences, including retail investors.
3) Ads are an IR tool, and they are moving into AI. How to use paid distribution across platforms and assistants to reach retail and institutional investors.
4) The IPO window is open, and attention is more competitive. Plan around a louder market that pulls focus from earnings, especially for retail investors.
Bonus: Katie Perry announced her new book, an exploration of how companies are adapting to the new realities of the retail investor boom that has sustained itself since Robinhood took off, Covid and Gamestop brought investing mainstream, crypto accelerated real-time trading behaviors, and AI democratized access to investment information for anyone without a Bloomberg Terminal..
1) Investors’ toolkits are being super-powered. Your IR and Comms stack needs to be rebuilt.
Two forces are converging. First, every mainstream investors will use powerful AI toolkits to research companies, trade stocks, and manage their portfolios. Second, SaaS is losing ground in corporations to AI-native, company-shaped software.
With GPT-5’s launch, both professional analysts and retail investors can spin up custom research workflows in minutes. The FT argues the “fund manager of the future might just be a machine,” reflecting rapid adoption of AI across the investment stack. A viral LinkedIn post claimed Claude was given execution access to a $100k brokerage account, an example of autonomous agents touching real capital. This tracks what we have been seeing around AI-assisted earnings and research workflows. In our own coverage, we highlighted how AI tools summarize calls, pull sentiment, and surface red flags in seconds. Broker platforms are adding AI-powered helpers for discovery, which retail investors will use: Interactive Brokers’ Investment Themes.
How can public companies keep up with democratized access to professional grade tools??
OpenAI’s Sam Altman has been telling operators that AI is driving a step-change in how software gets built and customized. The message: the world will need far more software, increasingly tailored to the org that uses it. See Sam Altman on bespoke software.
For IR teams, that means off-the-shelf SaaS software that only “add AI” will lag behind AI systems built to your workflows, data, and strategies.
Do now: Re-evaluate software partners. Off-the-shelf SaaS is no longer enough. Prioritize vendors shipping true customizations for you, not just bolted-on AI features.
2) Corporate Access is evolving, utilize formats that scale across all investors.
Corporate access is getting tighter and more concentrated among a handful of multistrat hedge funds, which makes public content strategy even more important for everyone else. Scalable formats even the field, and help you reach retail investors at the same time you serve institutions.
Online brokers are “hot again,” with engagement up and millions of new accounts, a clear signal that retail investors remain active consumers of market content. Your content needs to be easy to discover and share on those platforms.
Do now: Pick 3 formats you can ship every earnings cycle, then standardize the pipeline: record, cut, caption, post, and email. Digital video, social clips, newsletters, and new-media interviews scale to both institutions and retail investors. They travel farther than a static deck.
3) Ads are an IR tool, and they’re moving into AI.
X is preparing to put ads inside Grok’s answers. That means investor touchpoints will increasingly include AI chat surfaces where retail investors ask questions. FT on Grok ads, BI recap.
Extra signal: The Transcript post on how Google Search and Ad traffic is dropping for many top companies.
Do now: Program for content amplification and discovery with paid. Keep running targeted campaigns that amplify earnings calls, executive interviews, and post-call explainers on X and LinkedIn. Plan for AI placement. As ads land in assistants and GPTs, prepare clean, compliance-approved snippets that can be surfaced contextually next to investor questions.
4) The IPO window is open, and attention is more competitive.
IPO momentum is real, across sectors.
Figma went public July 31 on the NYSE and became a bellwether for software listings.
Firefly Aerospace priced an upsized deal at $45, then debuted on Nasdaq.
Figure Technology Solutions filed confidentially.
Carro is preparing a U.S. IPO as soon as 2026.
Even if you are not listing, there is a knock-on effect: IPO news competes with earnings for time and clicks. Retail investor attention is tough to capture in general and they gravitate towards “newness.”
Do now: Plan multi-layer digital distribution strategies around your earnings and post-earnings announcements, enabling retail and institutional investors to still find your narrative in a noisy market. And as always, MEASURE what works and optimize what didn’t work as well.
Actionable checklist
Make materials AI-ready. Short, quotable snippets, chaptered videos, clean transcripts, and a one-page “what changed.” Works for retail investors and pros.
Broaden access. Publish executive interviews in formats retail investors already use, and keep the IR site as the canonical source.
Scalable formats. Ship a repeatable mix each quarter: 3-minute video, newsletter note, social thread, and a podcast slot.
Program for discovery with ads. Ongoing, lightweight paid on LinkedIn and X to amplify earnings, explainers, and management clips to reach retail and institutional investors. Anchor creative to what is performing.
Read the Market. IPOs are in focus. Calibrate timing, hooks, and headlines so your updates break through while cycles are hot.
Bonus: Katie Perry is writing a book on how companies are building strategies for the retail investor era!
Katie Perry’s announcement: she is teaming up with Wiley, a top U.S. business publisher, to write a book on how companies are adapting to long-term retail investor participation. Katy has partnered with Stakeholder Labs on many marketing and product initiatives, and she co-created and hosted After Earnings with Morning Brew. She is also one of the top hosts of the Daily Rip show with Stocktwits, one of the largest retail investor platforms on the internet. We are excited to see this deep dive into the world of retail and corporates, and we look forward to contributions from friends across the ecosystem.
Sharing Katie’s “call for interview contributors” here.
Want Stakeholder Labs to help deploy a new digital investor strategy for your IR team? Email hello@stakeholderlabs.com.