US Businesses:
Executives in small companies can say whatever they want to investors with caveats. Smart companies know what to say and what not to say, however, and utilize legal teams and industry professionals to doctor releases.
Now, the investors know the technology pipeline, what the company is developing, it's why they invested in the company. The executive committee are making what are called forward-looking statements. I'm just going to glance this off Wikipedia because it's accurate:
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for certain forward-looking statements. Businesses usually include a form of a disclaimer that states that any instance of a forward-looking statement found in their material is only true at the time it was written, and they further claim that they are under no obligation to update such written statements if conditions change or that unexpected occurrences happen to affect the statement afterwards. Such forward-looking statements, however, must be identifiable by the use of certain prescribed words. This act allows companies to make speculative statements based on current market trends or research directions without fear of major repercussion, while ensuring that potential investors are informed of the speculative nature of the statements.
TL;DR companies can make speculative statements and not follow through on them at all, and in presentation materials and call transcripts you can always find the disclaimer for forward-looking statements that makes this okay.
The executive committee should not under any circumstance make non-speculative promises that could lead to a breach of fiduciary duty or insider trading suit, however. That's beyond scope here, but essentially one or more parties sue the company and potentially executives if they were involved. Employees are typically not involved unless otherwise noted, and shouldn't get involved unless otherwise required.
Also, employees absolutely should not disclose non-public information to investors. This opens up multiple parties to insider trading.
"We are developing Java" was made public, for example, during an investor call.
"We aren't going to develop Java" was not made public, is known only internally, and should not be disclosed.