AI companies adopting playbook of ‘Big Tobacco and Big Pharma’ to influence policy

Large artificial intelligence (AI) companies have borrowed the techniques of oil, tobacco and pharmaceutical companies to influence policy, according to a new report.

Researchers said they had found examples of how AI firms employed “corporate capture” – a process by which regulation and public bodies come to act in the interest of corporations rather than people – in similar ways to so-called Big Pharma or Big Tobacco.

Academics from the University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin, TU Delft and Carnegie Mellon University analysed 100 news stories published around four global AI events between 2023 and 2025 and found 249 cases fitting capture patterns. 

Of the mechanisms deployed, one of the most prevalent was “narrative capture”, which the team described as attempts to influence the position or decisions of public officials and regulations.

Dr Zeerak Talat, Chancellor’s Fellow at University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics, said: “It’s remarkable how the findings relate to common experiences of companies having greater influence over democratic processes than people.

“While we cannot draw a causal relationship between attempts at corporate capture and the disenfranchisement of citizens, the former certainly seems to hint at the latter.”

The research found the dominant narratives were around how “regulation stifles innovation” and “red tape”, whereby regulation is first portrayed as unnecessary, excessive or obsolete, setting the stage for later calls explicitly advocating for ‘deregulation’.

One of the other prevalent capture mechanisms used is what the researchers called “elusion of law”, which relates to violations and contentious interpretations of antitrust, privacy, copyright and labour laws.

The research suggested that Big AI had undermined and resisted regulation, oversight and enforcement in a variety of ways, such as lobbying and retaliation against whistleblowers, researchers and lawmakers. 

It was also found that in some cases the AI industry had benefited from a “revolving door” model where former policymakers go on to advise or take employment with major AI companies.

Dr Abeba Birhane, director of Trinity College Dublin’s AI Accountability Lab, said: “In addition to ‘narrative capture’ and the violations and contentious interpretations of antitrust, privacy, copyright and labour laws that were most recurrent, we also found that Big AI frequently uses the notion that ‘regulation stifles innovation’ and that ‘red tape can stymy national interest’ to rationalise their control of the overall narrative.”