AI summit: Four key takeaways from Paris meeting

• At Paris summit, leaders commit to AI investment
• Focus on deregulation, innovation in race for AI dominance
• AI will change work but skills lacking in some places

Under the sweeping glass roof of the Grand Palais in Paris, world leaders and tech entrepreneurs sketched out a vision for the future of AI that stressed potentials over pitfalls as the global race to dominate the tech hots up.

Following previous summits in London and Seoul, which focused on safety and existential risks, the Paris gathering concentrated on expansion and innovation, while showcasing France as a place where AI could flourish.

There was a push towards deregulation, substantial financial commitments for AI development and a declaration on ensuring that AI should be inclusive, open, ethical and safe, although not all participants signed that pledge.

French President Emmanuel Macron and EU digital chief Henna Virkkunen, among other attendees, sought to align Europe's AI sector with more deregulated global markets.

Here are the four key takeaways from the event:

Cutting red tape

Macron and Virkkunen promised to cut back on regulation in Europe, where last year lawmakers approved the AI Act, the world's first comprehensive set of rules governing the tech.   

Tech companies have also criticised the EU's Digital Services Act, which aims to improve content moderation and accountability for harmful content.

"We will simplify," Macron said. "It's very clear we have to resynchronise with the rest of the world."

U.S. Vice President JD Vance told the summit that what he called Europe's "massive" regulations on AI could strangle the technology, and rejected content moderation as "authoritarian censorship".

"America wants to partner with all of you," Vance said, adding the United States was concerned about European investigations into tech companies including Google, Meta and X.

Alexandra Reeve Givens, head of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a non-profit organisation that advocates for digital rights, said she was concerned by the lack of focus from Vance on basic safeguards and accountability.

"The vice president's caricature of regulation felt out of touch with the needs of businesses and users who will use and rely on these tools," she said in an emailed statement. 

More investment

A group of more than 70 companies, including Philips, Mistral and Volkswagen, unveiled the EU AI Champions Initiative, to "unlock Europe's full potential" especially in key sectors like manufacturing, energy and defence.

Macron announced more than 109 billion euros ($112 billion) of investment pledges from international companies and countries to boost France's AI development.

The European Union said it would spend 50 billion euros to bolster the bloc's AI technology, but this is significantly less than the $500 billion of U.S. private sector investment announced by President Donald Trump in January.

Global AI strategy

Summit participants signed a declaration on inclusive and sustainable AI, saying the tech should positively affect labour markets and align with environmental and social well-being.

However, while the declaration was signed by China and India, Britain, which has unveiled plans to become an AI superpower, together with the United States did not.

Both countries' reluctance to sign shows they aim to control a sector that should be for the public good, Phil Mataras, founder of decentralised data storage network AR.IO, said in a statement. 

"Following the launch of DeepSeek, China's arguably problematic, but certainly much cheaper alternative to the U.S.' ChatGPT, this further underlines the beginning of a global AI arms race that is likely to get ugly."

Isabella Wilkinson from London-based policy institute Chatham House, told Context/the Thomson Reuters Foundation British and U.S. refusal to sign "leaves a major vacuum".

Future of work

The summit also addressed the future of work, with some attendees suggesting the Global South was adopting AI more than richer countries.

"In Africa and Asia generative AI is being used to code, to assist with medical studies, and to teach English," Sylvain Duranton, from Boston Consulting Group, told a summit panel. 

Those countries see AI as "an opportunity rather than a threat," he said.

A 2024 report from BCG said employees in the Global South performed a greater number of tasks and experiment with AI more than those in the Global North.

James Manyika, senior vice president at Google's Technology and Society research labs, told a panel at the summit he expected to see a similar rise in AI use by marginalised groups in richer countries, although austerity measures could limit investment in training.

He also said he expected two-thirds of jobs to be altered by AI over the next two decades.

Currently, more tasks are being augmented using AI (57%) rather than automated completely (43%), according to a new report published during the summit by Anthropic, an AI company competing with Google and OpenAI.

(Reporting by Adam Smith; Editing by Jon Hemming.)