Trends in AI-focused shareholder proposals at U.S. companies

ISS Governance summarizes trends in AI-related shareholder proposals at U.S. companies from 2022 to mid-2025, focusing on responsible AI risk management, governance, and ESG-related concerns.

• AI-related proposals have maintained their overall numbers through the 2025 U.S. proxy season despite an SEC bulletin that reduced other environmental and social proposals, and they increasingly target board oversight, RAI disclosures, data center energy and water use, GHG emissions, and human rights and labor impacts (child safety, surveillance, misinformation, workforce effects).
• The article situates these proposals within a broader regulatory and standards landscape, referencing the EUAI Act, U.S. state AI laws, and RAI frameworks such as OECD AI Principles, UNESCO ethics recommendations, NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and ISO/IEC 42001:2023, while noting that investors representing over USD $8.5 trillion AUM have signed an Ethical AI investor statement via the World Benchmarking Alliance’s Collective Impact Coalition for Ethical AI.