Creative Industries and GenAI: Executive Summary

Generative AI is rapidly reshaping work. Workers throughout the creative industries are experiencing rapid and fundamental changes to their livelihoods - and those in freelance work are at the forefront of these.

Much has been made of the need to boost productivity in the UK. Generating over £100bn annually and growing at over one and a half times the rate of the rest of the economy, our creative industries are a model for what is possible.

Yet AI, often heralded as the solution to making the wider economy more productive, risks eroding this success for the creative workforce. Whilst the whole creative sector is seeing the impacts of GenAI, the freelance workforce is particularly exposed, lacking the same legal protections as salaried employees.

For the past year, the Crafting Responsive Assessments of AI and Tech-Impacted Futures (CREAATIF) research project has been mapping how freelancers from across the creative workforce are experiencing impacts from GenAI on their working conditions. Our research highlights seismic shifts already underway and offers urgent recommendations to protect and sustain the people whose skills are driving the growth of creative industries in the UK.

Key policy and regulatory recommendations

• Fair Remuneration: Enforce existing ownership rights and create new mechanisms to redistribute GenAI-generated revenues back to the human sources of creative data and content.
• Legislative Reform: Update UK laws to protect the freelance creative workforce — addressing employment rights, skills development, and AI-specific risks — in partnership with unions and industry experts.
• Inclusive AI Governance: Embed creative workforce perspectives in AI regulatory design, ensuring structured engagement that includes not only traditional ‘creators’, but all affected roles.
• Stronger Regulation for AI Firms: Mandate transparency, prompt action on infringement, and compensation when GenAI systems use creative outputs without consent.
• Ongoing Impact Assessments: Monitor the effects of GenAI on job quality, working conditions, and income security across the creative workforce, with clear accountability mechanisms.
• Preserving Human Originality: Introduce ‘human made’ watermarking and provenance tools that enable consumers to distinguish AI-generated content and support originality in commercial ecosystems.
• Workforce Training and Empowerment: Provide targeted education on IP and labour rights, contract negotiation, anti-mimicry strategies, and how to challenge bias and misrepresentation in GenAI tools.

Crafting Responsive Assessments of AI & Tech-Impacted Futures (CREAATIF) is a research project led by the  Queen Mary Centre for Creative Collaboration, Queen Mary University of London’s Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI), the Alan Turing Institute and the Institute for the Future of Work, investigating the impacts of Generative AI (GenAI) on the creative workforce. The research was funded by the AHRC and the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme.

Working with UK arts and culture unions Equity, BECTU, Musicians' Union and The Society of Authors, during 2024 the project team carried out workshops and surveys with 335 individuals to assess the impact of GenAI on the rights and working conditions of people working in creative industries.

Read our 'Good Work Research Report',  exploring the new challenges and opportunities of GenAI faced by creative workers through the lens and framework of ‘Good Work’.

Read our 'Creative Industries and GenAI Policy Brief', which builds on the recommendations above and sets out policy recommendations for regulators to build better governance of GenAI.