I helped launch the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) in 2010. Fifteen years later, integrated reporting remains mostly an aspiration, not something real. Most integrated reports are still a virtual staple of condensed financial information and a sustainability report with very little actual integration. What’s missing is an explicit linkage between specific material sustainability issues and the accounting elements that determine earnings and stock price—what’s in the income statement and balance sheet.

My colleague Professor Shivaram Rajgopal and I think we’ve found a way to finally deliver on this promise by leveraging AI. Shiva summarized an analysis we did of Microsoft in his recent Forbes column “Integrated Reporting 2.0 With AI.” Here, I want to explain the broader methodology and why this breakthrough matters now.