Artificial intelligence is reshaping economies, but fragmented rules risk increasing costs, hindering adoption and widening digital divides. ICC ensures that business perspectives shape global AI governance, making rules practical, proportionate and effective.
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Artificial intelligence is transforming how we live, work and trade. From boosting productivity to creating new industries, the opportunities are immense.
But fragmented rules risk creating a patchwork of regulations that drive up costs, slow adoption and make it harder for businesses to scale across borders.
While larger firms may be able to absorb the complexity, smaller firms risk being shut out altogether, widening digital divides and concentrating the benefits of AI in only a handful of businesses and economies.
Harmonised AI standards reduce regulatory fragmentation. They provide clarity and certainty for businesses while cutting compliance burdens. This opens markets, strengthens competitiveness and allows innovation to flourish.
Yet standards must also be risk-based, proportionate and market-driven – ensuring they support growth rather than hold it back.
As the voice of 45 million companies in 170 countries, ICC bring diverse business perspectives across regions and sectors together to make sure that AI standards and regulations work in practice, not just on paper. We represent business at global AI governance deliberations, including at the Council of Europe Committee on Artificial Intelligence, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United Nations (UN), the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance.
Working with our network of digital policy experts from member companies, we co-create evidence-based solutions grounded in the real regulatory and operational challenges businesses face – ensuring that innovation and growth go hand in hand with responsible and ethical governance.
ICC Global Digital Economy Commission
Timea Suto, Global Policy Lead – Digital
Meni Anastasiadou, Policy Manager – Digital
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Fragmented regulatory approaches risk slowing AI adoption and undermining competitiveness by driving up compliance costs and creating barriers, particularly for small- and medium-sized enterprises. For example, different national rules on data protection, storage and transfer create a patchwork of requirements that are often hard to reconcile. This can make it harder, and in some cases impossible, for businesses to move data seamlessly across borders, which is essential for training and deploying AI systems. Uneven rules can further create uneven protection, undermining trust in AI systems. ICC advocates for a four-pillar approach to global AI governance, built on: principles and codes of conduct; regulation; technical standards; and industry self-regulation.
AI is creating transformative opportunities, but access and benefits remain unevenly distributed. Many developing countries and underserved communities lack the necessary infrastructure, data access, skills and enabling policy frameworks that attract investment and drive innovation. This growing disparity risks deepening existing inequalities and leaving marginalised populations even further behind.
This may fuel pressure for top-down responses – such as forced technology transfers, taxation, revenue sharing requirements or protectionist policies. Such measures risk undermining innovation, the scaling of solutions, investment, market access and global cooperation at a time when collective progress is essential.
To ensure AI benefits everyone and supports the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), efforts must focus on enhancing inclusive access to energy, infrastructure, data, skills and policy frameworks that can support inclusive access and linguistic diversity, to name a few. And businesses, the developers and key users of AI – have a critical role to play in advancing practical, market-driven solutions that empower all regions to fully participate in and benefit from the AI revolution.
Divergent national approaches to AI regulation are creating overlapping and inconsistent requirements that raise compliance costs and reduce opportunities for cross-border trade and innovation. Small- and medium-sized enterprises are disproportionately affected, lacking the resources to navigate complex, and jurisdiction-specific frameworks.
International, market-driven standards can support the implementation of risk-based regulation across multiple legal frameworks. By embedding these standards into regulatory systems and public procurement they can create a common language that provides legal certainty, reduces duplication, and supports interoperability across markets. Governments should also invest in capacity-building to ensure that smaller businesses can participate fully in the global AI economy and provide incentives to enhance uptake. Harmonised standards lower costs, accelerate innovation and create a more predictable environment that benefits both business and society.
The Small Business Champions Initiative calls for AI-driven solutions and initiatives that help micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) expand into international markets. Submit entries by 16 March 2026 to the competition organised by the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Trade Centre, the World Trade Organization’s MSME Group and the International Telecommunication Union.
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