On March 18, 2024, the SEC settled charges against two investment advisers over false and misleading claims about their use of artificial intelligence, and some of those claims had appeared in a press release.
One of them, Global Predictions, had called itself the "first regulated AI financial advisor," a line that would pass for routine copy in many fintech launch announcements.
For financial copywriters, the lesson is blunt: a promotional adjective is a factual claim, and regulators and reporters now test it as one.
This guide sets out where the rules separate marketing copy from compliance-grade communication, and how to replace buzzwords in fintech PR with statements a journalist can check.
AI washing turned marketing adjectives into enforcement cases
According to the SEC, Toronto-based Delphia claimed it could make its AI "smarter so it can predict which companies and trends are about to make it big and invest in them before everyone else."
The agency found that Delphia did not have the AI and machine learning capabilities it claimed, and both firms were also charged with violating the Marketing Rule.
Delphia agreed to pay a $225,000 civil penalty and Global Predictions $175,000, while then-Chair Gary Gensler put the point plainly: "Such AI washing hurts investors."
Public companies have faced the same scrutiny.
On January 14, 2025, the SEC settled charges against Presto Automation, a restaurant-technology company listed on Nasdaq until September 2024, finding that it had falsely claimed its AI product eliminated the need for human order-taking.
According to the order, the vast majority of drive-thru orders placed through that version of Presto Voice required human intervention, though the SEC imposed no civil penalty given the company's cooperation.
The Federal Trade Commission has pursued the same kind of claim under consumer protection law.
In April 2025, it proposed an order against Workado, alleging that the company advertised its AI content detector as "98 percent" accurate when independent testing put its accuracy on general-purpose content at 53 percent.
On August 27, 2026, the FTC finalized orders requiring Cox Media Group and two other marketing firms to pay $930,000 in total over an "Active Listening" service sold as AI-powered, which the agency said was not based on voice data.
Each case turned on the same test: whether the company could prove what its words claimed.
Where regulators draw the line on promotional language
No single rule governs every fintech release, because the standard depends on who is making the statement.
Broker-dealers: FINRA Rule 2210
FINRA Rule 2210 sets the baseline for member firms in one sentence:
No member may make any false, exaggerated, unwarranted, promissory or misleading statement or claim in any communication.
FINRA Rule 2210(d)(1)(B)
The rule also requires communications to be "fair and balanced," and it bars material that would "predict or project performance" or make "any exaggerated or unwarranted claim."
Press releases "made available only to members of the media" are excluded from the rule's filing requirements, yet the content standards apply to all member communications.
A broker-dealer release that also runs on a public site such as Investing.com is made available to retail investors, so that media-only exclusion no longer describes it.
Under the rule, material made available to more than 25 retail investors within 30 calendar days is a retail communication, and a promotional one generally needs a registered principal's approval before use.
Investment advisers: the SEC Marketing Rule
For a registered investment adviser, a release that offers advisory services to prospective clients can fall within the Marketing Rule's definition of an advertisement.
The rule prohibits any advertisement containing "a material statement of fact that the adviser does not have a reasonable basis for believing it will be able to substantiate upon demand by the Commission."
Any discussion of potential benefits also requires "fair and balanced treatment of any material risks or material limitations."
In practice, the evidence for every superlative should be on hand before the release goes out.
Public companies: projections and non-GAAP figures
In private securities lawsuits, the statutory safe harbor protects a projection that is identified as forward-looking and "accompanied by meaningful cautionary statements identifying important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially."
That protection is limited to issuers already subject to SEC reporting requirements and those acting for them, and it excludes statements made in connection with an initial public offering.
A privately held fintech therefore cannot rely on this safe harbor, so each projection in its release should read as a dated plan with its conditions attached.
For non-GAAP figures, the SEC staff's interpretations state that failing to identify and describe a measure as non-GAAP would violate Regulation G.
In SEC filings and earnings releases furnished on Form 8-K, the same guidance treats calling a non-GAAP measure "record performance" or "exceptional," without an equally prominent description of the GAAP measure, as giving it too much prominence.
It also flags any earnings release headline that includes a non-GAAP measure but omits the comparable GAAP measure.
For the wider set of rules that govern results announcements, see our guide to avoiding disclosure violations in earnings releases.
What the SEC's plain English handbook says about jargon
A Plain English Handbook, which the SEC published in August 1998, lists "legal and financial jargon" and "abstract words" among the most common problems in disclosure documents.
Warren Buffett's preface describes the cost from an investor's chair: "Too often, I've been unable to decipher just what is being said or, worse yet, had to conclude that nothing was being said."
The handbook also names a habit that fintech copy shares with the disclosure documents it examined, "shotgunning," which it defines as "letting loose a blast of words hoping at least one conveys your intended meaning."
Its remedy is to "replace your laundry list of adjectives with a single word or phrase that adequately expresses your intended meaning."
A phrase such as "AI-powered, end-to-end, next-generation platform" is exactly that habit, and the single phrase underneath it is usually a plain description of what the software does.
The handbook adds a warning that applies directly to branded feature names: "don't create new jargon that's unique to your document in the form of acronyms or other words."
What disclosure research shows about readability and tone
Tim Loughran and Bill McDonald, writing in The Journal of Finance in 2014, proposed defining readability in financial disclosure "as the effective communication of valuation-relevant information."
They also reported that the Fog Index, the most commonly applied readability measure, is "poorly specified in financial applications."
For a release writer, that definition is a workable standard: a technical term that helps an investor value the news earns its place, and an adjective that carries no information does not.
Tone can be measured as well.
A 2014 study in The Accounting Review by Xuan Huang and co-authors Siew Hong Teoh and Yinglei Zhang estimated abnormal positive tone in earnings press releases, meaning wording more upbeat than a model of the company's fundamentals would predict.
They found that abnormal positive tone "predicts negative future earnings and cash flows."
Share prices responded favorably at the earnings announcement, followed by "a delayed negative reaction in the one and two quarters afterward."
The authors concluded that the evidence is consistent with managers using strategic tone management "to mislead investors about firm fundamentals."
For an issuer, the practical conclusion is to let the figures set the tone.
How journalists treat releases that say nothing
Muck Rack's State of Journalism 2026 report, drawn from 897 reliable survey responses, found that 86% of journalists say at least some of their work began with a PR pitch.
That influence is thin for most of them, since 51% said pitches accounted for 1% to 10% of their published stories and 14% said none of their stories started that way.
Press releases are a different channel from pitches, but the same arithmetic applies: most published stories start somewhere else, so a release has to earn its use.
A dated figure with a named source gives a reporter something to publish, while "industry-leading" gives them a question to ask and a reason to move on.
Financial outlets such as Benzinga also put releases in front of readers who follow markets closely, not only in front of reporters.
A replacement table for common fintech buzzwords
Each buzzword below is paired with the question a reporter or compliance reviewer is likely to ask, and brackets mark the figures you would need to verify.
| Buzzword | The question it raises | Replacement pattern |
|---|---|---|
| "revolutionary platform" | What does the product do, and for whom? | an app that lets [customer type] complete [task] in [time] |
| "AI-powered" | Which task does the model perform, and what do people still review? | a model that decides [X]% of applications, with underwriters reviewing the rest |
| "seamless onboarding" | How long does it take, and how was that measured? | a median account opening time of [X] minutes in [period] |
| "bank-grade security" | Which standard, and who verified it? | [named audit or certification], completed in [month and year] |
| "industry-leading" | Leading on which measure, by whose count? | ranked [position] by [metric] in [named source and date] |
| "first-of-its-kind" | Who confirmed that nobody did it earlier? | the feature and its launch date, or no claim at all |
| "guaranteed returns" | Is this a promise about future performance? | a variable rate of [X]% as of [date], with the conditions that apply |
| "trusted by millions" | Millions of downloads, or millions of funded accounts? | [X] funded accounts as of [date] |
| "explosive growth" | Growth from what base, over which period? | revenue up [X]% to $[Y] million in the quarter ended [date] |
| "cutting-edge" or "state-of-the-art" | Compared with what, and as of when? | the specific capability and the date it went live |
Where no verified figure exists, delete the claim instead of softening it, because a hedged buzzword still reads as a claim.
Four before-and-after rewrites
The rewrites below are illustrative examples written for this guide, not text from any company's release, and all names and figures in them are hypothetical.
A product launch with an AI claim
Before: "[Company] today unveiled its revolutionary AI-powered platform that seamlessly empowers small businesses to unlock the future of payments."
After: "[Company] today released an invoicing tool that uses a machine-learning model to match incoming card payments to open invoices; in a 90-day pilot with 40 merchants, it matched 94% of payments without manual review."
Why it works: it names the task the model performs and how much of that work happens without a person, the point on which the Presto order turned.
A funding announcement with a growth promise
Before: "Flush with fresh capital, [Company] is poised for explosive growth as it cements its position as the leading lender to gig workers."
After: "[Company] raised $30 million in Series B funding led by [Investor] and plans to expand its lending program from 12 to 30 states by the end of 2027, subject to state licensing approvals."
Why it works: with the safe harbor unavailable to a private company, the plan carries its deadline and main condition in one sentence, and the unprovable "leading" claim is gone.
A quarterly results headline
Before: "[Company] delivers record-breaking, best-in-class second quarter as Adjusted EBITDA soars 60%."
After: "[Company] reports second-quarter net loss of $4.1 million, narrowed from $9.8 million a year earlier, as Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, rose 60% to $2.4 million."
Why it works: the GAAP result leads the headline and the non-GAAP measure is labeled, which is what the SEC staff guidance on prominence expects.
SEC staff guidance also says EBITDA should be reconciled to net income, so present that reconciliation in a table using our advice on formatting financial tables and charts for media pickup.
A partnership announcement
Before: "[Company] and [Bank] today announced a game-changing strategic partnership that will leverage synergies to transform the customer experience."
After: "[Bank] will offer [Company]'s expense-management software to its 18,000 small-business checking customers starting in March 2027, with no monthly fee for the first 12 months."
Why it works: every fact in the new sentence can be checked against the agreement, and a reporter can write from it without a follow-up call.
A four-question test for every sentence
Before a draft goes to compliance review, read it one sentence at a time and put each sentence through four questions.
- Who says so? Attribute the claim to a named executive or to a document a reporter can check.
- What is the number? Replace every adjective of scale with the figure behind it, including its unit and comparison period.
- What is the date? Give every metric an as-of date and every plan a deadline, along with the condition it depends on.
- What would a compliance officer ask? Assume the reviewer will request evidence for any statement about AI capability or future results, and keep that evidence with the draft.
If a sentence fails any of the four, rewrite it or delete it, even when it is the line the product team likes best.
Workado's "98 percent" claim shows that the second question cannot stand alone, because a precise figure the FTC said was unsupported still drew an order.
Keep a one-page substantiation sheet with each release that pairs every figure with its source document and as-of date, so a reporter's question or a regulator's request can be answered the same day.
Finish that sheet before distribution, because once a release appears on StreetInsider, its text is the version investors and reporters will quote back to you.
