Between 2013 and 2024, investment in AI themes exceeded $1.6 trillion. The calendar year 2025 alone could see $375 billion in additional investments in AI infrastructure.¹ These astronomical investments are fueling exponential AI growth and leapfrogging AI technology, prompting simple yet critical questions regarding accountability, transparency, and what constitutes ethical behavior.

The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) recognized this widening gap between the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and the maturity of corporate governance, transparency, and human rights safeguards that surrounded it. Early findings from its Digital Inclusion Benchmark revealed that very few of the world’s most influential technology companies had disclosed formal ethical AI principles, and even fewer demonstrated implementation in practice. In response, the WBA convened a global, cross-sector coalition in 2022, bringing together investors, civil society organizations, and experts to amplify a unified call for responsible AI governance. This effort evolved into the Ethical AI Collective Impact Coalition (AI CIC), designed to accelerate corporate adoption of credible AI principles, enhance transparency, and embed human rights due diligence across the AI lifecycle.

Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of representing Boston Common Asset Management in our role as a co-lead founding investor for the AI CIC alongside Fidelity International, Candriam, and Amundi. The coalition recently released its second Progress Report, “Plugging the AI Transparency Gap,” which captures three years of collaborative action advancing responsible AI. I am proud to share the report with you today. As you’ll see, its findings emphasize the need for sustained efforts to bridge the gap between AI principles and their practical application, highlighting the importance of transparency, accountability, and respect for human rights in the development and deployment of AI.

Report Findings: Key Sectors

Semiconductor and electronics companies sit at the foundation of the AI ecosystem. They are the architects of the infrastructure, the gatekeepers of compute, and the builders of components that determine what AI can do, who can access it, and how it can be deployed responsibly. As AI systems scale, these companies increasingly shape the hardware and the risk landscape. Progress, however, is mixed among the semiconductor and electronics companies that the AI CIC engaged. Some, such as Samsung, demonstrate strong governance, while others, like Nvidia and Apple, have thus far been unresponsive to outreach.

Telecom providers have been highly responsive to investor outreach. Although significant gaps remain in operational transparency and safeguards for AI deployment, Telecom companies have become essential actors in governance, safety, and human rights due diligence (HRDD) in the AI era, making their openness to dialogue crucial. These companies influence AI risks, opportunities, and boundaries through the control of infrastructure, data stewardship, and the deployment of AI in critical, public-facing functions.

Platform companies, the digital infrastructure hubs of the modern economy, have shown fluctuating interest in dialogue, with Microsoft standing out for its constructive participation in engagement. Overall, however, technology giants, particularly US-based cloud providers, have largely eluded dialogue. US-based hyperscalers, such as Amazon, Apple, and Meta, have been mostly unresponsive. Companies in tech-adjacent sectors (e.g., entertainment, retail, transportation) have also exhibited less transparency and been less willing to engage, often citing lower material risks or underdeveloped standards. ​

AI CIC: Past, Present, Future

Since its launch in 2022, the WBA AI CIC has grown from 44 to 78 members. Among the members are 64 investors representing $11.3 trillion in AUM engaging with technology companies across several industries. During Phase I of the initiative, 19 of the 44 companies contacted published AI principles for the first time. In Phase II, engagement expanded to 80 companies, and by September 2024, 71 of those companies had published AI principles—a 115% increase since 2021.² This evidence of the AI CIC’s impact earned it global recognition in 2025 from the PRI (Human Rights Award) and the ICGN (Excellence in Stewardship Award).³

Still, challenges remain. Nearly half of the companies contacted did not respond to investor outreach in Phase II, and less than half are implementing AI principles in a meaningful way. While AI principles are becoming increasingly common, transparency in their implementation remains limited, and few companies conduct human rights impact assessments or disclose operational details. ​

The coalition nevertheless demonstrates the power of investors, civil society, and experts working together with a unified voice. Its findings underscore the ongoing need for collaboration, strategic engagement, and alignment with emerging AI governance frameworks to ensure that AI development serves the interests of people and society responsibly despite the lack of a unified global framework. Looking ahead, Boston Common and the AI CIC will continue this vital work, advocating for transparency, accountability, and respect for human rights in the development and deployment of AI.

¹ Source: Reuters

² 33 of the 80 companies engaged under the WBA Ethical AI Initiative had published ethical AI principles in 2021.

³ International Corporate Governance Network