War and geopolitics
109 of 521 companies dropped a paragraph in Risk Factors that uses one of these words:
Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Middle East, geopolitical, war.
The paragraph was in the earlier 10-K and nothing like it is in the latest.
It counts text; it does not say how serious a risk is. Words in capitals only (such as AI) must be in capitals.
By sector
Sector is the SEC's industry description of the company. Each count opens that sector's quotes below.
| Sector | Companies | Compared |
|---|---|---|
| Optical Instruments & Lenses | 2 | 2 |
| Apparel & Other Finishd Prods of Fabrics & Similar Matl | 1 | 1 |
| Canned, Fruits, Veg, Preserves, Jams & Jellies | 1 | 1 |
| Electrical Industrial Apparatus | 1 | 1 |
| Electronic Components, NEC | 1 | 1 |
| Farm Machinery & Equipment | 1 | 1 |
| Food and Kindred Products | 1 | 1 |
| Gas & Other Services Combined | 1 | 1 |
| Meat Packing Plants | 1 | 1 |
| Miscellaneous Food Preparations & Kindred Products | 1 | 1 |
| Oil & Gas Field Machinery & Equipment | 1 | 1 |
| Oil Royalty Traders | 1 | 1 |
| Paper Mills | 1 | 1 |
| Real Estate | 1 | 1 |
| Retail-Eating & Drinking Places | 1 | 1 |
| Retail-Retail Stores, NEC | 1 | 1 |
| Services-Misc Health & Allied Services, NEC | 1 | 1 |
| Special Industry Machinery, NEC | 1 | 1 |
| Sugar & Confectionery Products | 1 | 1 |
| Telephone & Telegraph Apparatus | 1 | 1 |
| X-Ray Apparatus & Tubes & Related Irradiation Apparatus | 1 | 1 |
| Computer Communications Equipment | 2 | 3 |
| Perfumes, Cosmetics & Other Toilet Preparations | 2 | 3 |
| Search, Detection, Navigation, Guidance, Aeronautical Sys | 2 | 4 |
| Security & Commodity Brokers, Dealers, Exchanges & Services | 2 | 4 |
| Aircraft Engines & Engine Parts | 1 | 2 |
| Computer Peripheral Equipment, NEC | 1 | 2 |
| Fats & Oils | 1 | 2 |
| Industrial Organic Chemicals | 1 | 2 |
| Instruments For Meas & Testing of Electricity & Elec Signals | 1 | 2 |
| Paperboard Containers & Boxes | 1 | 2 |
| Printed Circuit Boards | 1 | 2 |
| Pumps & Pumping Equipment | 1 | 2 |
| Rubber & Plastics Footwear | 1 | 2 |
| Services-Medical Laboratories | 1 | 2 |
| Telephone Communications (No Radiotelephone) | 1 | 2 |
| National Commercial Banks | 5 | 11 |
| Computer Storage Devices | 2 | 5 |
| Hospital & Medical Service Plans | 2 | 5 |
| Industrial Instruments For Measurement, Display, and Control | 2 | 5 |
| Orthopedic, Prosthetic & Surgical Appliances & Supplies | 2 | 5 |
| Finance Services | 11 | 28 |
| Air Transportation, Scheduled | 1 | 3 |
| Electrical Work | 1 | 3 |
| Electronic Computers | 1 | 3 |
| Measuring & Controlling Devices, NEC | 1 | 3 |
| Natural Gas Transmission | 1 | 3 |
| Retail-Auto Dealers & Gasoline Stations | 1 | 3 |
| Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design | 1 | 3 |
| Services-Consumer Credit Reporting, Collection Agencies | 1 | 3 |
| Soap, Detergents, Cleang Preparations, Perfumes, Cosmetics | 1 | 3 |
| Surgical & Medical Instruments & Apparatus | 3 | 10 |
| Crude Petroleum & Natural Gas | 2 | 7 |
| Pharmaceutical Preparations | 3 | 11 |
| Semiconductors & Related Devices | 4 | 15 |
| Investment Advice | 2 | 8 |
| Electronic & Other Electrical Equipment (No Computer Equip) | 1 | 4 |
| Electric Services | 3 | 15 |
| Biological Products, (No Diagnostic Substances) | 1 | 5 |
| Laboratory Analytical Instruments | 1 | 5 |
| Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. | 1 | 5 |
| Services-Business Services, NEC | 3 | 16 |
| Electric & Other Services Combined | 2 | 12 |
| Insurance Agents, Brokers & Service | 1 | 6 |
| State Commercial Banks | 1 | 6 |
| Real Estate Investment Trusts | 4 | 27 |
| Security Brokers, Dealers & Flotation Companies | 1 | 7 |
| Services-Prepackaged Software | 2 | 19 |
263 paragraphs · Services-Prepackaged Software show all sectors
We are increasingly building AI into many of our offerings, including generative and agentic AI. As with many innovations, AI offerings, such as Agentforce, and our Salesforce Platform present additional risks and challenges that could affect their adoption and therefore our business. For example, the development of our AI offerings and the Salesforce Platform, which provides information regarding our customers’ customers, present emerging ethical issues. If we enable or offer solutions that draw controversy due to their perceived or actual impact on human rights, privacy, employment, or in other social contexts, we may experience new or enhanced governmental or regulatory scrutiny, brand or reputational harm, competitive harm or legal liability, especially as geopolitical turmoil creates increasingly volatile political and market conditions. Inadequate or ineffective AI development, deployment, content labeling or governance by us or others that result in controversy could also impair the acceptance of AI solutions or result in unintended performance of the services. This in turn could undermine confidence in the decisions, predictions, analysis or other content that our AI applications produce, subjecting us to competitive harm, legal liability and brand or reputational harm. The rapid evolution of AI will require the application of resources to develop, test and maintain our products and services to help ensure that AI is implemented ethically in order to minimize unintended, harmful impact. Uncertainty around new and emerging AI applications such as generative AI content creation and AI agents will require additional investment in compliance, governance and the licensing or development of proprietary datasets, machine learning models and systems to test for accuracy, bias and other variables, which are often complex, may be costly and could impact our profit margin. Moreover, the move from AI content classification to AI content generation through our development of Agentforce and other generative AI products brings additional risks and responsibility. Known risks of generative AI currently include risks related to accuracy, bias, toxicity, privacy and security and data provenance. For example, AI technologies, including generative AI, may create content that appears correct but is factually inaccurate or flawed, or contains copyrighted or other protected material, and if our customers or others use this flawed or protected content to their detriment, or the owners of such copyrighted material seek to enforce their rights, we may be exposed to brand or reputational harm, competitive harm and/or legal liability. Developing, testing and deploying AI systems may also increase the cost profile of our offerings due to the nature of the computing costs involved in such systems. If we are unable to mitigate these risks, or if we incur excessive expenses in our efforts to do so, our reputation, business, operating results and financial condition may be harmed.
Read in the 10-K filed Mar 5, 2025 ↗
•the economy as a whole, geopolitical conditions, including global trade and health concerns, market conditions in our industry and the industries of our customers, and financial institution instability;
Read in the 10-K filed Mar 5, 2025 ↗
If customers fail to pay us or reduce their spending with us as a result of adverse macroeconomic or geopolitical conditions or otherwise, we may be required to take steps to enforce the terms of our contracts and collect amounts due, including through litigation, which could increase our operating expenses. For example, in February 2023, one of our customers, Oi SA, a Brazilian telecom company, initiated reorganization proceedings in a Brazilian bankruptcy court as well as a secondary proceeding under Chapter 15 in the United States and exposed us to risks on collections of pre-petition receivables and ongoing revenue, as detailed in Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Factors Affecting Our Results of Operations.” If macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions and uncertainties adversely affect our business and the businesses of our current and prospective customers, our results of operations and financial condition may continue to be harmed, and many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section will be exacerbated.
Read in the 10-K filed Feb 26, 2025 ↗