In remarks to the Investment Company Institute, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s chief economist and director of the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis argued that artificial intelligence strengthens the need for structured, standardized and reliable financial data. While AI can lower the cost of processing and preparing disclosures, it does not eliminate the costs of producing, verifying and safeguarding information. The disclosure regime should therefore remain grounded in materiality rather than respond to AI with an indiscriminate expansion of required information, a message consistent with the SEC’s broader review of material-information requirements under Regulation S-K. Machines are becoming a major audience for regulatory filings, increasing the risk that inconsistent labels or definitions lead to misclassification. Through July, downloads of SEC datasets rose sharply from a year earlier, including increases of more than 14 times for Form N-PORT data and nearly 75 times for business development company data, probably reflecting greater automated use. The remarks also called for market participants to support SEC rulemaking with contextualized evidence on the scale and drivers of costs and benefits, who ultimately bears them, likely behavioral responses and the evidence underlying those assessments.

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