A new report issued Monday by the British Film Institute (BFI) sets nine recommendations on the UK screen sector to ensure that artificial intelligence will benefit, not film and television bans.
“AI in the Screen Sector: Perspectives and Passforward” analyzes current usage and experiments with “rapidly evolving artificial intelligence (AI) technology,” BFI said. “To ensure that the UK is a global leader in screen production and creative innovation, this report sets a roadmap of key recommendations to support the delivery of ethical, sustainable and comprehensive AI integration across the sector.”
The goal is for the UK to “harness its creative strengths and enable independent companies to scale up and compete globally.”
The report stated that adoption of generated AI within the UK screen sector “poses important legal, ethical and practical challenges that need to be addressed to ensure sustainable and equitable integration.” The main issue it highlighted is “the use of copyrighted materials including over 100,000 films and television scripts in training the generated AI model without payment or permission from the right agent.”
The practice “disregards intellectual property creation and threatens the fundamental economics of the screen sector when squeezing out the original creator,” the report emphasized. “Other issues include protecting human creative control, the fear of unemployment through exchange and the risks to investments to train new skills, high energy consumption and carbon emissions, and creative content on biased data.”
This report was published by BFI as part of its role within Costar Foresight Lab, the UK's creative R&D network. “Generative AI promises to democratize and revolutionize the creation of screen content,” BFI said, highlighting important opportunities. “Projects such as the Charisma Consortium, backed by Channel 4 and Aardman Animation, aim to make AI tools accessible to creators regardless of budget or experience. This will allow a new wave of UK creators to generate high-quality content with modest resources, but concerns about copyright and ethical use are concerns about adoption of BBC IS In Initiative and in Initiative and copied ai in bi nativested ai bi in bi. They experiment with AI for subtitles, metadata generation and content classification to improve accessibility and operational efficiency.”
The report also concluded that the UK's “strong foundation in creative technology, home to over 13,000 creative technology companies), means that the UK screen sector is well positioned to adapt to this technological change.” Ai-Enhanced Dubbing, visual effects, interactive storytelling, automated content classification, and more were cited as areas of opportunity.
Professor Jonny Freeman, director of Costar Foresight Lab, said: “This report acknowledges that AI provides powerful tools to increase creativity, efficiency and competitiveness at every stage of the production workflow, from script development to production planning, onset production, to post-production and distribution, while also raising urgent questions about skills, workforce adaptation, ethics and sector sustainability.”
Provided by Rishi Coupland, BFI
This publication comes at a time of many discussions about Hollywood and subsequent genai. “AI has long been an established part of the screen sector's creative toolkit, and has been seen in recent Oscar-winning post-production. A brutal person Rishi Coupland, Director of BFI Research and Innovation, said: “To increase the reliability of accents), and its rapid advancements have attracted millions of investments in technology innovator applications.
He added: “While it offers great opportunities for the screen sector, such as speeding up production workflows, creating content, and enhancing the power of new voices, it could invade traditional business models, emit skilled workers, and undermine public trust in screen content. The report's recommendations could provide a roadmap for ways that could encourage the use of VFX Industry to continue using films that win the UK, VFX Industry. Creativity, innovation, and storytelling to screens around the world.”
Here we will provide detailed information on nine recommendations from BFI AI Reports.
Recommendation 1
Rights: Set the UK as the world's leading IP licensing market.
“We need to address copyright concerns surrounding the generation AI. The current training paradigm – AI models are developed using copyrighted materials without permission, but pose a direct threat to the economic foundation of the UK screen sector,” the BFI report highlights. “A viable path forward is through the licensing framework. The 79AI Training License Transaction was signed worldwide between March 2023 and February 2025. The UK Copyright Licensing Office is developing generative AI training licenses to promote market-based solutions.
The report states that “the UK is well suited to lead in this field thanks to its 'gold standard' copyright system, a vibrant creative technology ecosystem, and a coalition of creative organizations defending fair licensing practices. ”
Recommendation 2
Carbon: Embed data-driven guidelines to minimize the impact of AI on carbon.
The Genai model requires considerable computational resources, resulting in high energy consumption and associated carbon emissions. “Even so, the AI environmental footprint is often obscure by end users in the creative industry,” the BFI report said. “Transparency is an important first step in addressing the environmental impact of AI. UK-based organizations such as BlueZoo have already chosen to run AI models on infrastructure where energy sources and consumption are fully visible.”
Recommended 3
Responsible AI: Supports cross-discipline collaboration to deliver market-first ethical AI products.
“Generating AI tools must match both industry needs and public values,” BFI emphasizes. “Many models, tools and platforms are developed without sufficient input from the screen sector (or in fact, screen audiences), leading to features and outputs suitable for production workflows and cultural homogenization and ethical monitoring. The full potential of AI can only be reached if creative experts participate in its development.”
Recommendation 4
Insights: Enable UK creative industry strategy through world-class intelligence.
According to a report on Monday, there are over 13,000 creative technology companies in the UK, with a strong foundation for both AI research and creative production. However, it also highlights the lack of access to structured intelligence on AI trends, risks and opportunities. “This presence of a lack of shared infrastructure for Horizon Scanning, Knowledge Exchange and Alignment limits the sector's ability to cohesively respond to disruptions,” he concluded.
Recommended 5
Skills: Develop sectors to build skills that complement AI.
“AI automation may eventually have low demand for certain digital content creation skills. It could also create new opportunities for roles that require human surveillance, creative direction and technical flow in AI systems,” BFI said. “Our research identifies a significant shortage of AI training clauses. AI education in the UK screen sector is now more “informal” than “formal,” with many workers, especially freelancers, lacking access to resources to support them to supplement their complementary skills. Specialist knowledge. ”
Recommended 6
Public Transparency: There is a growing public understanding of AI use in screen content.
“According to the survey, 86% of UK respondents support clear disclosures that AI will be used for media production, and this demand for transparency is reflected by screen sector stakeholders seeking standards for the origin and reliability of content to counter the rise of AI-generated misinformation and the rise of 'slops',” the BFI report states. “National agencies such as the BBC have already experimented with fine-tuning AI models to reflect editorial standards, and BFI is deploying AI in their archive work with a focus on ethical and transparent practices.”
Recommendation 7
Sector Adaptation: Adapt and grow, boosting the UK's powerful digital content production sector.
“The UK boasts a unique convergence of creative excellence and innovation, and has a proven track record of integrating emerging technologies into the production of film, television and video games,” BFI said. “London is the world's second largest hub for VFX experts (after Mumbai). Generated AI is already increasing efficiency, inspiring creativity, opening up new storytelling possibilities, and AI-assisted animation (such as the development of AI-assisted animation) across the UK screen sector.Where robots grow) and visual dubbing (perfection) Reactive stories and dialogue (Dead meat). However, the study identified no opportunities for AI training and funding, and congressional committees point out that there are no fragmented infrastructure and industry-wide standards that could hinder the continued growth and development of AI-supported creative innovation. ”
Recommended 8
Investment: Unlock investments to drive the UK's high potential creative technology sector.
“There is a compelling opportunity and an immediate need for targeted financial support for the UK's creative technology sector,” BFI said. “The UK has global creative technology leaders such as frame stores, disguises, AI startups, and more, synthesis and stability. However, the Senate has identified the “technology scale-up issues” in the UK, identifying the culture of risk averaging that acts as growth capital, poor infrastructure, and beria for expansion. ” report also emphasizes that physical infrastructure is needed.
Recommendation 9
Independent Creation: Allows UK creatives to develop independent creativity supported by AI.
“Generative AI is lowering traditional barriers to entry into the UK's screen sector, enabling individuals and small teams to realize their ambitious creative vision without the need for large budgets or studio support,” the report said. “While UK-based director Tom Patong explains how AI breaks down barriers that “keep so many creators on the sidelines,” the charismatic consortium backed by Channel 4 and Aardman animations sees the potential to support creators with reasons for disadvantage through lack of access to funds and competing industries with better fundraising organizations.” The BFI concludes: “The development of market-first ethical AI products, investing in accessible tools, training and funds for independent creators, will allow the UK to promote a more inclusive and dynamic creative economy that AI enhances, rather than replacing human imagination.”
