Academics and industry leaders share wishlists for the Paris AI summit

World leaders and industry bigwigs arrived in Paris today for an AI summit which will explore how to navigate the global "paradigm shift" ahead of us.

The AI Action Summit brings together almost 100 countries and more than a thousand private sector and civil society representatives from across the planet, who will join forces to answer three questions, which we've quoted verbatim below:

1. How can we massively develop artificial intelligence technologies and uses across all world countries?
2. How can we ensure nobody is left behind and preserve our freedoms in the AI revolution?
3. How can we ensure that uses of artificial intelligence respect our humanist values and that the technology serves society and the public interest?

The summit will focus on five overarching themes: public interest AI; the future of work, innovation and culture; trust in AI and global AI governance.

In a statement, organisers said: "The stakes are sky-high: we must enable artificial intelligence to fulfil its initial promise of progress and empowerment in a context of shared trust that contains the risks inherent to technological development, while seizing every opportunity."

Perhaps predictably, President Macron kicked off a supposedly European conference by announcing good news for France: 109 billion euros ($112.5 billion) of private funding for the nation's artificial intelligence sector, including financing for a 1-gigawatt data centre.

Macron said the spending was “the equivalent for France of what the United States announced with Stargate,” referring to President Trump's $500 billion AI investment.

For business, the topic of regulation is likely to loom large.

"If we want growth, jobs and progress, we must allow innovators to innovate, builders to build and developers to develop," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an op-ed in Le Monde newspaper ahead of the summit.

"There's a risk some decide to have no rules and that's dangerous," Macron also told reporters. "But there's also the opposite risk, if Europe gives itself too many rules. We should not be afraid of innovation."

Dozens of academics and business leaders contacted us to share their hopes for the AI Action Summit. Here's what they said...

Locking down open-source

Amanda Brock, CEO, OpenUK

"From the get-go, as we would expect in Macron’s France, unlike past summits, the AI Action Summit has referenced open source and the open source community. Its outputs will be  grounded in 3 main principles of science, solutions - focusing on open AI models- and policy standards. 

"The summit’s priorities including ‘ensuring that AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy’ are critical and to be celebrated.  Further announcements will include the launch of the ‘Current AI’ Foundation funded by ‘willing nations’ to the tune of €400m on launch and including data commons and ethical AI practices as a necessary enabler to the democratisation of AI. 

"Ensuring our AI futures don’t sit in a handful of companies is an underlying theme across all conversations in this Europe-based summit. The real question will be whether the US and China can be persuaded to sign up to the end-of-summit statement.

"For the UK it's clear we must build domestic capabilities whilst collaborating with international companies to build the infrastructure critical to the UK's success. To be world class we need infrastructure in the UK stewarded with standards creating global norms and governance through open source tooling."

Driving inclusive progress on AI

Rupal Karia, Country Leader UK&I at Celonis

"The AI Summit in Paris is a timely reminder for some of the most pressing challenges facing AI in today’s landscape, from the acceleration of global AI adoption to managing its societal transition responsibly alongside humanist values. For businesses, this highlights the urgent need to establish the right frameworks and resources to harness AI’s full potential while safeguarding ethical standards.

"Without a clear strategy for responsible AI development, we risk deepening inequalities and missing opportunities for inclusive innovation. This underscores the critical role of Process Intelligence technology in ensuring AI delivers real, measurable value. AI is only as effective as the processes it enhances and without clear visibility, governance and optimisation, businesses risk inefficiencies, bias, and missed opportunities.

"The likes of Process Intelligence can empower organisations, helping them map, monitor, and refine workflows, ensuring AI is deployed ethically, inclusively, and for the collective good. Policymakers must also ensure robust legislation is in place to regulate AI’s development, ensuring accountability and transparency, without slowing innovation. It’s high time businesses and governments take tangible steps towards safeguarding AI. The Summit is a line in the sand to ensure that AI serves both economic progress and the broader public interest, creating sustainable value for all.”

Improving public understanding of AI

 Professor Gina Neff, Professor of Responsible AI at Queen Mary University London and executive director at Cambridge University’s Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy

"For us in civil society, it's essential that we bring imaginaries about AI into the everyday, for everyday folks and across sectors; from the barista who makes your morning latte to the mechanic fixing your car they all have to understand how AI impacts them and, crucially, why AI is a human issue.

"I’ll be taking this spirit of public interest into the Summit and pushing back against Big Tech’s push for hyperscaling.

"Thinking about AI as something we’re building together – like we do our cities and local communities – puts us all in a better place."

Let's hope the Action Summit lives up to its name

James Hall, VP & General Manager UK&I at Snowflake

“It’s not surprising to see the Paris event has been named the AI Action Summit. This shows a commitment to creating more purposeful AI use cases, more action than discussion when it comes to safety, and the need to be genuinely practical.

“In terms of practicality, it's vital to remember that AI systems are only as powerful as the data they’re trained on, making high-quality, accessible data essential. Modern, scalable and secure data-sharing enables faster and more accurate AI insights that avoid hallucinations. Accurate AI helps create safer and more responsible AI, which will support its deployment across nations.

“Just as AI models need to be trained on diverse datasets to ensure inclusivity, a wider range of technologists must be closely involved to certify that effective regulation is developed and will actually work. Responsible AI needs a unified approach, which reinforces the need for these Summits.”

Driving a workplace revolution

Ian Jeffs, UK&I Country General Manager at Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group

"The AI Action Summit is a pivotal moment for the industry, with a focus on driving consensus around AI principles and introducing frameworks that enable innovation. Lenovo’s CIO Playbook found that appetite for AI continues to be high, with business leaders in EMEA reporting the highest levels of satisfaction with AI projects in the world and increasing their investments.

"For the Summit to be considered a success, it must help organisations to implement impactful AI solutions that drive workforce productivity and can clearly showcase ROI. Data quality issues are cited as a top challenge for AI adoption, so establishing clear guidelines that won’t slow innovation is critical to unlocking AI’s true potential."

Remaking institutions with AI

Damian Stirrett, GVP and GM, UK and Ireland at ServiceNow

"The AI Summit feels like a positive step – an opportunity to share knowledge, good experiences, and to understand how AI can most effectively be put to work for a better future. It is clear our political leaders understand both the scale of the opportunity and the need to partner with businesses to deliver it.

"With companies, including ServiceNow, investing in key markets such as the UK, the AI Summit is a prime opportunity for global leaders to reinforce their commitment to the possibilities of this technology and to start putting AI to work for people across the globe.

"The size of the AI prize is indeed remarkable. NHS waiting lists as an example present perhaps the most acute challenge, with ambitious targets to treat 65 percent of patients within 18 weeks by March 2026. Our doctors currently lose 13.5 million hours annually to outdated IT systems. Meanwhile, staff right across government handle countless routine queries that could be automated. But challenges need tangible action.

"From reskilling programmes for workers, visible reductions in operational costs, or creating new job opportunities for the AI era, these are just some of the benefits in the UK and globally that could be realised from a clear plan around AI guidance and innovation."

An open approach to AI development

Dr Laura Gilbert, OpenUK Advisory Board

“Open source represents more than just code accessibility – it's the foundation for democratising AI innovation, and providing the collaborative infrastructure needed to ensure AI development benefits from diverse global perspectives and remains accountable to the broader community. An Open Source approach can transform AI from a resource controlled by a select few into a shared global commons that can drive equitable progress across societies, economies, and nations.  

"When we make AI tools and safety frameworks open source, we create a global laboratory for innovation that simultaneously builds trust through transparency. This approach may allow us to maintain the rapid pace of AI advancement whilst helping to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place and well understood. The technology's immense potential can only be properly realized when development and safety protocols are accessible to all, enabling collaborative governance that transcends national boundaries.” 

Clear frameworks for international collaboration

Dr Vivek Singh, Lecturer in Digital Pathology at Barts Cancer Institute,

"The Paris AI Action Summit represents a critical opportunity for global collaboration on AI governance and innovation. I hope to see actionable commitments that balance ethical considerations with the rapid advancement of AI technologies, ensuring they benefit society as a whole.

"A key outcome would be the establishment of clear frameworks for international cooperation, fostering trust and accountability in AI development and deployment."

Better evaluation systems to regulate AI and anticipate risks

Professor Maria Liakata, Professor of Natural Language Processing at Queen Mary University of London

“AI has the potential to make public service more efficient and accessible. It will have enormous societal impact and carries risks, but at the moment we are not evaluating AI systems properly. Regulators are currently on the back foot with evaluation and developers have no systematic way of offering the evidence regulators need.

“I strongly believe that we urgently need systematic, flexible evaluation of AI systems, looking at their technical performance as well as how well they carry out their tasks. We must remain agile and listen to the voices of all stakeholders.

“This would give us the evidence we need to develop AI regulation and help us get there faster. It would also help us get better at anticipating the risks posed by AI.”

Opening the doors to innovation

Sam Johnston, Convenor, Open Source Alliance (OSA)

"Making openness a paramount priority at this pivotal moment is crucial. The focus on open AI models as one of the three main principles is a welcome addition to the agenda for the AI Action Summit. Open Source has been a transformative force in the global economy for decades, delivering $8.8 trillion in value to its users and driving innovation across industries. Ensuring that AI remains open and accessible to all is essential to sustaining this momentum and unlocking its full potential for society, empowering nations with greater digital sovereignty.

"This week, the launch of the Open Source Alliance and release of the Open Weight Definition mark a key milestone in this effort, providing much-needed clarity for AI models that are openly available but do not yet meet the Open Source Definition. By distinguishing between Open Source and Open Weight AI, we can foster a more transparent and accountable ecosystem while continuing to push for greater openness in AI development.”

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