The goverment appointed eight ‘AI champions’ to accelerate AI adoption and tackle barriers. The AI champion for the creative industries is Sally Davies, managing director of Abbey Road Studios.

The champions have published AI adoption plans setting out recommendations to boost AI adoption in their sectors. See below for a summary of Sally Davies’ AI adoption report for the creative industries.

If you have a comment on the report or you’d like to share your thoughts on AI so we can share them with Sally, email [email protected]

Sally Davies says with the creative industries often quick to explore new technologies, AI use is higher in the creative industries than across the economy as a whole with 51% of creative businesses using AI, compared with 33% of all businesses.

However, she said there are many barriers to adopting AI in the creative industries. They include:

• lack of capacity, confidence and infrastructure, particularly among micro-businesses, small firms and freelancers which dominate the sector.
• major concerns and legal uncertainty regarding copyright boundaries, data scraping, and the commercial risks of utilising AI-generated content.
• lack of AI skills and training.
• lack of trust in AI product safety or transparency, This is reported by 10.1% of creative industry businesses, compared with 5.7% of all businesses.
• concern among creative workers that generative AI may overlap with human tasks and uncertainty regarding career pathways and the future value of existing skills.

The plan makes eight recommendations:

1. Establish an augmentation first approach to AI adoption
2. Continue to develop a responsible AI framework for the creative industries
3. Raise practical AI knowledge and confidence
4. Develop trusted guidance, standards and tools for AI adoption
5. Support skills, leadership and workforce transition
6. Reduce cost barriers to responsible adoption
7. Expand nationwide AI infrastructure through testbeds, anchor institutions and regional support
8. Review, evaluate and update the plan as technologies evolve

Here’s more detail about the key recommendations:

Establish an augmentation-first approach to AI adoption

“Many creatives are concerned that AI may replace their craft. That concern must be taken seriously. The value of the UK’s creative industries comes from human creativity, judgement and originality. AI should therefore be adopted to enhance human creativity, productivity and opportunity, not to displace the people and creative content that make the sector world-leading.

“I encourage government and industry to publish an augmentation-first statement for the creative industries and use it as the foundation for my engagement and advocacy. This should support human creative control, encourage best practice before major AI deployment, and link adoption to skills and transition support. To ensure it reflects the realities on the ground, this must be designed with creative workers and trade unions to ensure it acts as a clear pro-worker statement.”

Continue to develop a responsible AI framework for the creative industries

Sally Davies pointed out that the “creative industries are particularly exposed to unresolved questions around copyright and AI”.

In March, the government back tracked on its plan to allow AI companies to train their models using copyrighted works unless the rights holder opts out following strong protests from several groups and individuals in the creative industries. In a consultation, only 3% of the 11,500 respondents backed the government’s preferred option.

The government announced its decision in its ‘Report and Impact Assessment on Copyright and AI’. Sally Davies said the government should carry out measures detailed in that report:

• launching a consultation on digital replicas to address harms where a person’s likeness is replicated without permission, while protecting legitimate innovation.
• establishing a taskforce on AI labelling to propose best practice so consumers understand whether content has been made using AI.
• publishing a review of mechanisms available for creators to control their works online, including standards, technical solutions and best practice on input transparency.
• launching a working group on independent and smaller creative organisations to explore whether government should support their ability to license content.

She also said the new Creative Content Exchange could  “support responsible AI adoption if it develops as a trusted marketplace for digitised cultural and creative assets. She added: “It could help content owners commercialise their assets while giving data users easier access to high quality, lawful and trusted material. This could support the next wave of creative innovation and help develop high-value AI models.”

Raise practical AI knowledge and confidence

She said she will support this through initiatives including breakfast roundtables to share examples o AI use, including tools, impacts and lessons learned, quarterly showcases across the UK on how AI is reshaping the creative industries ethically and augmenting human creativity, and a short-form film series showing how leading creatives use technology in their creative process.

She also called for the government and industry to support of “a national programme of knowledge building, including AI demonstrators and peer learning network.

Develop trusted guidance, standards and tools for AI adoption

She called for clear and practical guidance on questions including:

Davies recommended the government and industry should consider delivering this guidance through methods including AI toolkits, practical adoption standards and trusted tool and support directories.

Expand nationwide AI infrastructure, through testbeds, anchor institutions and regional support

Sally Davies said:

“AI adoption should not be concentrated among larger firms or in a small number of locations. The creative industries are shaped by place, identity, networks, talent and cultural context. Adoption support must therefore be locally accessible and connected to existing creative clusters.”

“I support the distribution of growth and innovation across the UK so that regional creative economies can participate in, and shape AI adoption. I encourage government and large firms at the intersection of creativity and technology to identify existing offers, improve signposting, develop partnerships and ensure private infrastructure complements public infrastructure.”

She said this requires action across three key areas:

1. Practical testbeds: government and industry should move beyond theoretical R&D and support practical, everyday AI adoption.
   • Existing programmes should explicitly support AI adoption in creative workflows, not only R&D and new technology development.
   • Subsector-specific test environments should support use cases across film, music, fashion, games and other creative industries.
   • Testbeds should generate case studies and learning resources that show what works, what does not, and what safeguards are needed.
2. Anchor institutions: large creative firms, studios, broadcasters, universities, and technology companies can help smaller firms access expertise and infrastructure.
   • Anchor institutions should provide practical access to compute, software tools, technical environments, mentoring and workshops.
   • Private and public infrastructure should be better aligned so existing offers are easier to find and use.
3. Regional growth and distributed innovation: regional creative economies must be able to participate in and shape AI adoption.
   • Regional hubs should host hands-on demonstrations and training designed around local business needs and subsector strengths.
   • Support should build on existing creative clusters, universities, local authorities  and industry networks.
   • Local hubs should connect to national testbeds, R&D programmes and peer learning networks.
   • Evidence from across the UK should inform national policy, so policy reflects regional realities as well as the experiences of larger, better-connected firms.

If you have a comment on the report or you’d like to share your thoughts on AI so we can share them with Sally Davis, email [email protected]

About Bristol Creative Industries

Bristol Creative Industries is the membership network that supports the region's creative sector to learn, grow and connect, driven by the common belief that we can achieve more collectively than alone.