The rate of change in investor relations has steadily increased since digital communications surpassed print. And now that new regulations are set to come in at the EU level, compounded by Britain’s potential exit from the union, investor relations professionals are facing change not only in terms of the structure and format of their communications, but in terms of the governance of investor communications itself.

Thus the yearly Evolution of the Annual Report conference took a long-term look at the way in which change will affect investor relations and shareholder communications. “The UK is looked upon as leading in narrative, strategic reporting, governance. I don’t think that’s going to disappear overnight,” says PwC’s director of corporate reporting said in the opening session.

However, he went on to outline a breakdown in people’s trust in business, a trend Edelman, in its annual Edelman Trust Barometer, has been tracking since the 2008 financial crisis. While the situation is somewhat less dire now than in 2009, trust has not recovered to pre-2008 levels. This decrease partially explains the reason businesses have begun to align their communications behind a core purpose – a reason for the brand to exist aside from simply making money. What has become the latest corporate buzzword is actually based in the desire by companies to develop a sustainable business alongside a sustainable environmental strategy. For this reason, sustainability and integrated reporting have become a core strength of the European businesses that have shifted their annual reporting styles in recent years.

In the second panel discussion, commentators discussed the way in which corporate reporting is allowing companies to become more transparent. Letitia Weeks, reporting manager for DeBeers Group discussed the company’s landmark annual report that documents the companies financial outputs in alignment with its corporate strategy and CSR outlook.

However, developing an annual report requires attention paid to numerous regulations, guidances and corporate realities, one of which is sustainability, another is culture. Culture reporting is not just a recent trend, supported by the UK’s Financial Reporting Council but now has regulatory foundations. The institution of the Modern Slavery Act means that companies are required to divulge information about their workforce within their annual report.

The framer of the Modern Slavery Act, a former civil servant now working for Unseen, Justine Currell, says the act is designed to make companies, and their audiences, aware of the 46m people in the world working as slaves. Transparency within the supply chain is the objective. For companies, that means taking a good hard look at internal processes, something that lawyers say may end up being more a legal tickbox exercise than a genuine report. The vague nature of the act, “Leaves it completely open to businesses to decide what they want to say,” says Jacqui Boardman, senior partner at Carnstone Partners LLP. Yet there are no legal sanctions in place for those who don’t work to eradicate slavery within their organisations.

Because of its now somewhat bloated and diversifying nature, Kevin Hills from EY has said, “The Annual Report is not fit for purpose anymore.”  He calls for a unified use of data in such a way as to allow for the director comparison of companies. Speakers also addressed the ways in which Britain’s divorce from the EU will impact corporate reporting. Some speculate that the UK will initially adopt EU regulations in the short-term while figuring out its own laws in the long term. They say corporate reporting regulation is low on the government’s list of priorities. Others say the UK had a strong influence on EU regulations in the first place and thus many European regulations are indeed UK-driven in the first place.

Whatever the future holds in the medium-term, author Calum Chace has a semi-apocalyptic view of human society in the long term. “Social collapse is never quite as far away as it seems, says the man behind the new book ‘Surviving AI.’ His dystopian future projects a world where human society is dominated by machines, where capitalism collapses and society has to adapt to a changing world. In that landscape, not only will the nature of corporate communications change, but the nature of work will change as well.

But, as Dr Seuss once said, “Only you can control your future.” In the mean time, be wary of the rise of the machines.