ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS ADOPTION AND INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT OF QUOTED COMPANIES IN NIGERIA

Abstract

In modern time, it is pertinent to say that the volumes of data derived from different sources require appropriate techniques of analysis and prediction other than the manual approach. The tools adopted in analysing these data by managers of companies are not reported and emphasized even though the outputs derived depict various tools used. In the presentation of annual reports and financial statements of quoted companies, the adoption of several AI applications for presenting financial information are revealed from the contents of the prepared annual reports and financial statements of companies. If AI applications/software are used by managers in the preparation of annual reports and financial statements of companies, can the contents of annual reports grouped as AI tools in this study predict investment management of the companies? This is the focus of the study. The study was conducted to evaluate the influence of AI tools adoption on investment management of quoted companies in Nigeria. AI tools adoption was represented by the factors in the contents of annual reports and financial statements of quoted companies in Nigeria selected for the study which were portfolio optimization (PO), predictive analytics (PA), data analysis (DA), big data processing (BDP) and risk analysis (RA). Leverage (LV) was used as the control variable. Both data for investment management and AI tools adoption were all collected using content approach from the annual reports and financial statements of the companies selected for the study from 2013 to 2025. The nature of the data was panel and this mandated the adoption of panel linear regression approach. Twenty-three (23) manufacturing companies were sampled from the population of thirty-one (31) companies and were only the companies trading on the floor of Nigeria Exchange Group (NGX). The outcomes of the analysis showed that PO and DA exerted positive and consequential influence on IM, PA exerted negative and consequential influence on IM, BDP exerted positive but immaterial influence on IM while RA exerted negative and inconsequential influence on IM of the companies studied. It was concluded that AI tools adoption had significant influence on investment management of quoted companies in Nigeria. The following recommendations were suggested that information on portfolio management of quoted companies should be disclosed more with the adoption of AI applications and prediction of accounting data should be encouraged to provide more information to the users and to arouse the interest of the potential investors.