Share of Deal Press Releases Mentioning AI (quarterly)

## What this measures

A Palanor calculation: the share of deal press releases (Exhibit 99 to 8-K Items 1.01 and 2.01, a fixed monthly sample) that mention AI at least once, by quarter. Patterns: `AI` (case-sensitive), `(?:artificial intelligence|generative ai|machine learning|large language models?|LLMs?)`.

## Why it matters

Shows how fast artificial intelligence moved from a niche word to a standard part of how companies describe their business and its risks when they first ask public investors for money.

## How it is made

The share of releases that mention the topic at least once. Same documents, sections and patterns as the rate series. A fixed sample of 8-K filings that report Item 1.01 (a material agreement) or Item 2.01 (a completed acquisition or disposition), from 2012: each month, the 60 Item 2.01 and 60 Item 1.01 filings with the lowest hash of the accession number (a rule, not a choice). Palanor reads the filing's Exhibit 99 and keeps it only if it is a press release (by its description in the filing index or a release marker in its opening, at most 5,000 words) about a deal (deal words such as acquisition, merger or business combination at least twice, once in the headline or lead). 2,865 of the 21,230 sampled filings carried such a release; most Item 1.01 filings are credit agreements and leases with no release. A release's rate is mentions per 10,000 words; a quarter's reading is the mean across releases, unweighted (the sample design is the same every month), published only with at least 30 releases. The topic word lists were fixed and committed on their own (src/lib/filings-text/topics.ts, 2026-10-20) before any counting code existed or any rate was computed; they are counted by regular expressions with no language model.

## How to read it

The series starts in 2012 Q1 at 0.0%. The latest reading, for 2026 Q3, is 35.6%. The high is 39.0% (2026 Q2) and the low 0.0% (2012 Q1). Quarters carry 36 to 66 documents. With a median of 46 releases a quarter, a quarter's share carries a sampling error of about ±3.6 points (one standard error at the series' average of 6.2%), so read moves that last several quarters, not one.

## What it does not say

Press releases are written to sell a deal, so the themes are what companies say the rationale is, not what the deal delivers. Companies that file no release, or attach it to another form, are missing, so the sample leans to listed companies that announce deals. The sample is a fixed number of filings a month, so a reading is a share of announced rationale, not a count of deals. The whole release counts, including its forward-looking-statements notice, so "the inability to realize expected synergies" is a synergy mention, and a company whose name contains "AI" adds an AI mention each time it names itself. A single passing mention counts the same as a long discussion.

## Source

Palanor calculation from SEC EDGAR filings (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; public domain). Palanor reads the filings to count words by fixed rules and never stores or republishes their text.