The Way You Announce Your AI Strategy Affects Your Stock Price
Companies that communicated their AI strategy with clarity, CEO ownership, and specificity outperformed their sector benchmarks by an average of 10.8% in the 90 days after the announcement, according to new research from Gregory. The weakest communicators in the study lost 2.2% over the same window — a 13-point gap.
Key Findings
The AI Communications Advantage Study measured the quality of AI strategy announcements made by S&P 500 companies between 2022 and 2025, assigning them an AI Communications Quality Score (ACQS) from 0-20.
We then tracked their stock performance against their sector benchmark ETF from the announcement date forward. The difference — the alpha gained or lost — made clear that companies that communicated their AI strategy with substance and follow-through saw higher gains.
| Tier | Avg. alpha, 90 days |
| Tier A — ACQS 18-20 | +10.8% |
| Tier B — ACQS 15-17 | +1.2% |
| Tier C — ACQS 12-14 | -2.2% |
| Tier 1 vs. Tier 3 gap | +13 pts |
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- A high ACQS score does not guarantee outperformance. But the top communications tier averaged +10.8% excess return within 90 days, and companies scoring 16 or higher held a +9.9% average premium a full year out.
- Fewer than 3% of the companies scored — 13 of 449 — reached the top tier.
- The pattern held without Big Tech. Excluding Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia, strong communicators still beat weaker ones by 11.3 points at 90 days (+8.6% for Tier 1 vs. -2.7% for Tier 3).
The Top AI Communicators in the S&P 500
These companies had the clearest, most credible, and most market-effective AI communications in the S&P 500.
| Rank | Company | ACQS Score | 90-day Alpha vs. Sector |
| 1 | Alphabet | 20 | +2.4% |
| 2 | Meta Platforms | 19 | +17.0% |
| 3 | Amazon | 19 | +9.6% |
| 4 | Microsoft | 19 | +6.7% |
| 5 | IBM | 19 | +6.0% |
| 6 | JPMorgan Chase | 19 | +4.3% |
| 7 | Morgan Stanley | 19 | -5.2% |
| 8 | AMD | 18 | +62.9% |
| 9 | Nvidia | 18 | +36.1% |
| 10 | Walmart | 18 | +10.2% |
| 11 | Moderna | 18 | +5.5% |
| 12 | Salesforce | 18 | -5.1% |
| 13 | Johnson & Johnson | 18 | -9.7% |
The full ranking is available in the complete study.
What the Best AI Communicators Do Differently
The ACQS measures companies across five dimensions that distinguish genuine AI commitment. The top scorers share the same habits:
CEO Ownership
The CEO owns the AI story personally. It comes up in earnings calls, shareholder letters, and interviews, in the chief executive’s own words.
Named Use Cases
The announcement names specific applications with real business stakes, never a vague pledge to “explore AI opportunities.”
90-Day Follow-Through
Within three months of the announcement, the company ships products, forges partnerships, attracts new hires, or otherwise shows the strategy is real.
Tier-1 Media Coverage
The story earns coverage in major business and financial press, such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and Reuters, signaling credibility.
Board and Governance Record
The board demonstrates serious institutional commitment with a visible record of AI oversight, from committee assignments to disclosed governance frameworks.
How Gregory Helps AI Companies
Gregory has spent four decades telling complex technology stories that attract the attention of media, investors, and partners. We’ve earned AI clients media coverage in TechCrunch, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal by building AI narratives that are specific, credible, and compelling.
We work at the forefront of AI and communications, and as this study shows, the quality of your AI communications has measurable, material value beyond your reputation. There are financial stakes to how clear your story is.
For AI companies and companies announcing an AI strategy, we handle the whole arc:
Announcement strategy and messaging
We pressure-test your AI story before it goes public, then build the messaging, the proof points, and the 90-day follow-through plan based on insights only available to us.
Media relations
Our media team places AI stories in the tier-1 business press and the trade outlets investors and analysts actually read.
AI search visibility
Through our Gregory Influence Engine, we track and improve how your company appears in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, where buyers and investors increasingly form their first impression.
Thought leadership
CEO platforms, bylines, and data-driven research like this index that turn your executives into trusted industry voices.
If your company plans to announce an AI strategy, a model launch, a funding round, or an IPO, the communication around it carries real enterprise value. We can show you what the gap between Tier A and Tier B looks like for your company specifically.
Methodology
The study scored 449 S&P 500 companies with identifiable AI strategy announcements made between 2022 and 2025, ranking the top 100 by ACQS. For each company, we identified the Primary AI Announcement Date (PAD) and rated the announcement across five dimensions, each scored 0-4:
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- CEO Ownership
- Named Use Cases
- 90-Day Follow-Through
- Tier-1 Media Coverage
- Board and Governance Record
We measured stock performance at 90 calendar days from each company's PAD and compared those returns with the matching SPDR sector ETF over the same period. Alpha was calculated as the company's return minus the sector ETF return, using adjusted closing prices. A sensitivity analysis excluding six mega-cap technology companies (Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia) confirmed the core pattern.