The Audiences Agency made a number of recommendations for how cultural organizations should use AI in a report released this week.
This report, Let’s Get Real: AI, is the result of a collaborative action research and learning project conducted from April to December 2025.
This brought together a group of 32 leaders and practitioners from 16 UK cultural organizations to experiment, learn and strategize about the use of artificial intelligence in their work.
The report’s five key recommendations are:
- Ensure processes are human-centered rather than AI-driven
- Create clear guardrails that can flexibly evolve as AI tools and context change.
- Foster small-scale, low-risk experimental approaches
- Enrich your data before expanding your use of AI
- Learn with your peers and share knowledge
“The cultural sector is not alone in wanting to ensure that the deployment of AI is responsible, ethical and ultimately fit for purpose,” the report says.
“In many ways, the issues surrounding AI are not new and are no different from broader digital transformation challenges: the dominance of big tech, the need for continuous skill building, and financial pressures.
“But in terms of speed, scale, and potential impact, AI is different. The environmental costs, the damage caused by biases built into large-scale language models, and the risks to the creative arts posed by generative AI are just three very important challenges that are not yet well understood and addressed.
“The scale of these changes and the widespread integration of AI into the tools and platforms we use every day means it cannot be ignored. The cultural sector urgently needs to find its collective voice and join the conversation.”
Museums participating in this cohort include Bradford District Museum & Gallery; Bristol Museum; Museum of London; The Box, Plymouth. and the National Gallery in London.
The 2025 Let’s Get Real AI Cohort was supported and sponsored by the Arts Marketing Association and Bloomberg Connects. The service is delivered in partnership with AI expert Jocelyn Burnham and is run in partnership with the University of Leicester Institute for Digital Culture and its director Ross Parry.
Insights from this report influenced the selection of themes for the next Let’s Get Real program, which launches in May. This will focus on AI and social impact.
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