👉 Background: Xero is the New-Zealand based accounting platform that launched back in 2006. It took on the likes of MYOB and Quicken. Since its listing on the ASX in 2012, Xero has grown its market value by over 2,800%.

👉 What happened: Xero is continuing on its growth path after announcing its revenue jumped 22% for the year to March. Throw on top of that, its number of monthly churned subscribers was less than 1%.

👉 What else: During the earnings update, Xero's CEO was asked about the potential for generative AI in the Xero business and she didn’t want to promote the use of AI for the sake of it…which goes against the grain of many other CEO's riding the AI-hype-train.

What's the key learning?

💡Many CEO’s are touting their business' AI usage because it's what investors want to hear - even if the technology isn’t yet a core part of the business.

💡In fact, in the 3 months between December and March, 179 of the top 500 public companies in the US mentioned “AI” as part of their earnings update. And the average number of times “AI” was mentioned on their earnings calls was 13.

💡Often companies can see a significant short-term increase in their market value and investor interest. In fact, the S&P 500 companies that mentioned “AI” on their earnings calls have seen a better average stock price performance over the past 12 months. But if the promise of AI isn’t implemented, it can lead to distrust among investors.