Risk is not normalizing. Across 175 annual filings from 35 of the world's largest companies, every risk theme we tracked scores higher in 2025 than in 2021. The shocks of the past five years did not resolve sequentially. They compounded.
This report analyses five years of Item 1A Risk Factor disclosures across seven sectors — Life Sciences, Auto, Retail, FMCG, Professional Services, Technology, and Energy. It tracks how AI went from absent to the fastest-growing risk category in the dataset, how supply chain risk exceeded its COVID-era peak without anyone noticing, and how ESG commitments became liabilities in the same political cycle they were made.
Inside the report:
- Why AI & Automation mentions grew 658% between 2021 and 2025
- How regulatory risk shifted from compliance burden to policy reversal risk
- Why the annual risk review cycle is structurally too slow for the pace at which external risk now moves
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