The Paris AI Action Summit: more than 60 countries sign the inclusive and sustainable AI statement

The AI Action Summit was held in Paris on 10 and 11 February 2025. It closed with the Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet. More than 60 countries and international organisations signed, including France, China, India and the EU. The United States and the United Kingdom did not sign — a difference that is itself a useful read on divergence in international AI governance.

The centre of gravity of the statement

Compared with earlier meetings built mainly around “safety risk”, this statement leans visibly toward application and inclusion: international cooperation in AI governance, narrowing the digital divide, and building AI platforms that serve the public interest. The shift reflects that major economies are moving from “whether to do it” to “how to do it better”.

For companies, the direct signal is that international policy is tilting toward deployment — but deployment still presupposes trustworthiness and safety. See our notes on the G7 AI for Prosperity statement and on WAIC global AI governance.

What signing and not signing means

The absence of the United States and the United Kingdom is notable. In multilateral statements, differences in signature usually reflect a preference about the governance path rather than a difference in attitude toward AI development. For companies, that difference means the same product may meet different regulatory expectations in different markets: one side emphasises multilateral coordination and the public interest, the other national industrial competitiveness.

When operating across jurisdictions, factoring that divergence into compliance strategy is more realistic than looking for a single universal approach. See our notes on the Wuzhen Summit AI governance and on the UN WSIS people-centred digital society.

What to watch after the summit

The statement is not binding; its value is the agenda it sets. What is worth tracking is how its directions turn into concrete mechanisms — assessment methods, public platform building and cross-border capability cooperation.

For AI companies, the significance of such multilateral agendas is that they provide a forecasting window: once a theme is repeated at a summit, it tends to appear in regional or domestic rules within one to two years.

This article is based on the summit statement published by the French Presidency, Xinhua reporting and public information and is for reference only; it does not constitute legal advice.