Questioning the Answers: LLMs enter the Boardroom

 Join the Quantitative Research & Solutions (QRS) team at S&P Global for a deep dive into the practical application of LLMs and generative AI in alpha generation, using machine-readable earnings call transcripts. 

In their Questioning the Answers research, the QRS team analyzes the Q&A dialogue between sell-side analysts and company executives. When analysts raise topics not covered in prepared remarks, it can reveal blind spots — or deliberate omissions. The nature of executives' responses—clear vs. evasive—offers further insight into corporate behavior. 

Using LLM-derived vector embeddings from 192,000 earnings calls, the team developed two novel factors: 

• Proactiveness – How well the prepared remarks anticipated analyst questions. 

• On-Topic Alignment – How directly executives responded to questions. 

Together, these behavioral signals delivered compelling performance: 

• On-topic executives outperformed off-topic peers by +390 bps/year

• Proactive executives outperformed reactive peers by +170 bps/year

• A combined strategy yielded +506 bps/year in a long/short portfolio 

Agenda

• Welcome & Opening Remarks  

• Signal Construction & Alpha Results  

What’s Next: Future Work & Roadmap