Engaging stakeholders, shaping AI ethics: Targeted engagement in corporate AI ethics statements

TL;DR

This study explores how AI companies use ethics statements to communicate with different stakeholders, revealing distinct strategies for primary and secondary audiences.

Contribution

The paper introduces a stakeholder-oriented engagement model for corporate AI ethics communication.

Findings

Primary stakeholders like customers and developers are addressed with operational strategies focusing on data protection and product updates.

Secondary stakeholders such as academia and society are engaged through strategic plans for ethical AI development.

Responsive and strategic strategies are more common when addressing management and regulators.

Abstract

Corporate AI ethics statements are being increasingly integrated into sustainability communication to showcase responsible AI performance as part of broader sustainable efforts. This study examines how leading AI companies (developers and adopters) engage with diverse stakeholders through their AI ethics statements. Integrating stakeholder theory with the engagement system, it analyses how Strategic, Responsive, and Operational engagement strategies address the needs of primary and secondary stakeholders. The analysis included 122 English-language statements (265,952 words) from those firms, covering their AI ethics guidelines and policies, press releases, and corporate AI ethics reports. The findings show statistically significant differences in usage frequencies in how primary and secondary stakeholders communicated with targeted engagement strategies. For primary stakeholders, particularly customers and third-party developers, companies frequently used three Operation-targeted strategies to detail data protection measures and AI ethics-related product updates. When addressing corporate management and local regulators, Responsive Acknowledge and Strategic Endorse were more prevalent. In contrast, communication with secondary stakeholders, particularly society, interest groups, and academia, frequently used Strategy-targeted engagement to outline broader ethical AI development plans. These findings inform the development of a stakeholder-oriented engagement model for corporate disclosures on their own trustworthy AI practices.

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