Who lobbies on AI rules, and what they get
Lobbying, corporate political activity and campaign contributions appear on 49 recent papers, mostly about tax, trade and environmental policy, while AI regulation appears on 53 papers as a question of design. The EU AI Act and dozens of US state bills attracted record lobbying by technology firms. What did the money change in the texts?
What prompted this
Since October 2025, 49 papers carry a lobbying, corporate-political-activity or campaign-contribution keyword (23 in economics journals, 11 in management, 8 in accounting, 7 in finance): "lobbying" on 20, "corporate political activity" on 14, "campaign contributions" on 7, "corporate lobbying" on 6. "AI regulation" appears on 53 papers and "EU AI Act" on 25, in a separate literature on how the rules should look.
Questions
- Which provisions of the EU AI Act changed between the Commission's draft and the final text, and do the changes line up with the positions filed by the largest lobbyists?
- In US states, do bills with the most technology-industry lobbying die, get delayed or get amended in predictable ways?
- Do firms that lobby on AI also publish "responsible AI" principles, and do the two say the same thing?
Data that could help
Lobbying registers (the EU Transparency Register, US federal and state filings), legislative texts across drafts, and firms' public policy statements.
Next step
Code the changes between the drafts and the final EU AI Act article by article and match them to the positions in lobby meeting records.