The Securities and Exchange Commission is a US federal agency established in 1934 to enforce securities laws, regulate public markets, and protect investors. The SEC's jurisdiction includes corporate disclosure requirements (10-K, 10-Q, 8-K filings), insider trading, market manipulation, and the registration of securities offerings.
SEC filings are a primary data source for technology coverage because they contain company-level detail — revenue breakdowns, risk factors, executive compensation, workforce trends — that is not otherwise public. Analysts, journalists, and researchers routinely reference EDGAR (the SEC's filing system) for ground-truth data on public companies.
For AI-related coverage specifically, SEC filings have become a primary source for tracking AI-attributed workforce reductions, AI infrastructure spending commitments, and the emergence of AI-specific risk factors in public-company disclosures. Expect SEC disclosure rules to evolve in the late 2020s to include AI-specific risk and governance requirements analogous to existing climate and cybersecurity disclosure rules.