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From 2027, IFRS 18 will redraw the income statement for every company reporting under IFRS Accounting Standards. It changes nothing about what a business earns or the cash it generates. Yet it will move some of the market’s most closely watched numbers, bring adjusted metrics inside the audited accounts and give issuers a rare, framework-mandated reason to talk to investors about how they measure themselves. The companies that treat IFRS 18 investor communication as a strategic exercise rather than a compliance one will come out ahead.

Investors have always valued visibility, but the premium they place on it has risen considerably. In an environment shaped by macro volatility, rate uncertainty and ongoing geopolitical disruption, tolerance for ambiguity in corporate communications has narrowed, and the market is paying close attention to the quality of management thinking, not just the numbers they put out. Mid-term guidance has shifted, from a useful complement to annual reporting into a meaningful differentiator in how the market prices credibility and management quality, and the companies that handle it well tend to carry that dividend across their entire investor relations programmes.

Annual report season is around the corner. Over the next few months, issuers will be knee-deep in drafting, aligning numbers with narrative and shaping the sections that investors actually use. As teams lock into this year’s timetable, we looked back at recent practice to see what has really changed. We ran an AI-assisted review of annual reports from issuers on the AEX over the last three cycles, 2022 to 2024, analysing both text and visual content. Our aim was to understand how storytelling and disclosure are shifting and to draw out what good looks like for the season ahead. The themes reflect a broader international trend, providing an analytical window into the future of annual reporting best practice.