The Real Story of the 2025 AI Summit: A Lot of Talk, No Action

By Michael Wade

The headlines from the 2025 AI Summit in Paris tell a familiar story. Despite the grand setting and the high-profile attendees—from political leaders to the world's tech elite—the summit failed to produce any concrete commitments. No binding agreements, no enforceable regulations, no multinational funding commitments, and no new guardrails to shape the future of AI.

The real story of this 'AI Action Summit'? Nothing meaningful was accomplished.

A Summit Without Substance

The final declaration, signed by dozens of countries, is little more than a collection of vague statements about the 'importance of responsible AI development' and the 'need for multi-stakeholder cooperation.' It lacks enforcement mechanisms, deadlines, or any real consequences for non-compliance. In short, it’s a feel-good document with no teeth.

The absence of the U.S. signature was expected. Washington has been clear that it prefers to set its own AI rules rather than align with anyone else. The UK’s decision to abstain was more surprising, but ultimately, it changes nothing. In reality, both countries may as well have signed—the declaration doesn’t commit signatories to anything tangible. Their refusal to participate was more about optics than substance.

Europe’s Funding Play

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used the summit to announce an EU-wide AI funding package. The initiative is meant to help European companies compete with their American and Chinese counterparts. While a step in the right direction for Europe’s struggling AI ecosystem, it falls far short of what the U.S. and China are pouring into AI.

Who Really Benefits?

The biggest winners from the summit are the tech giants, none of whom signed the declaration. Without new regulations or oversight mechanisms, companies like OpenAI, Meta, Google, NVidia, and Anthropic are free to continue shaping AI development on their own terms. The lack of international consensus means that individual governments will continue to struggle with piecemeal regulation, while the industry moves forward at its own pace.

For all the talk of “AI safety” and “global cooperation,” the summit reinforced the status quo: technology companies, not governments, remain in control of AI’s future.

The Illusion of Progress

AI regulation is one of the most complex and urgent challenges of our time. The Paris summit was billed as a chance to 'focus on the positive' and 'build a coordinated global response', but it delivered little beyond rhetoric. In the end, the event was a showcase of political posturing rather than a turning point for AI governance.

Last week we moved the IMD AI Safety Clock 2 minutes closer to midnight. It currently stands at 11:34. Based on what happened this week, we're unlikely to move it back.?

The world’s leaders came to Paris, talked about AI, and left without changing a thing. It will go down in history as the AI Inaction Summit.