CoSTAR Network response to the Government's AI Adoption Plan for the Creative Industries
Earlier this month, the UK government published an AI Adoption Plan for the Creative Industries, setting out opportunities and barriers to AI adoption, as well as a long-term vision for how it can support the future of the sector. This article outlines how the CoSTAR Network seeks to engage with the suggestions made in this Plan. It highlights our continuous commitment to creativity and delves into specific CoSTAR activities, including our AI for Creativity Initiative.
Posted: 25 June 2026
The UK Government has published a suite of Independent AI adoption Plans, prepared by appointed AI Champions across the ‘Industrial Strategy 8’ (IS8) sectors. The plans identify barriers to AI adoption and set out practical, forward-facing recommendations.
The AI Adoption Plan for the Creative Industries, has been led by the sector’s appointed AI Champion Sally Davies, Managing Director of Abbey Road Studios. The Plan sets out a careful approach to the opportunities and barriers to adoption – including a series of recommendations to prioritise creativity and creative work with the long-term ambition of UK leadership in trusted, creative AI.
The Plan is premised upon an “augmentation first” approach to AI adoption for the sector:
“AI should support human creativity, not displace it. It should help creative workers spend more time on the creative aspects of their jobs and roles. It should help businesses compete, innovate and grow. It should give smaller firms and independent creators access to new tools and It should be adopted in ways that maintain trust, respect creative labour and support high quality jobs.”
The CoSTAR Network, the UK’s R&D Network for creative technologies, aims to work alongside Sally and the teams within the Departments for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), and Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), to ensure that the Plan's commitment to strengthening and enabling creativity is met. The Network is already responding to the opportunities and challenges the Plan sets out: Indeed, the augmentation first ethos, whereby AI is deployed responsibly in service of creativity, is at the heart of the recently launched CoSTAR AI for Creativity initiative – alongside the Network’s broader offer of adoption support, resources and research.
“Across the sector, businesses and creators are experimenting with AI tools and processes. However, adoption is uneven. Larger businesses are moving faster than smaller firms, and most organisations are using AI first for operational tasks before applying to creative workflows. This is understandable. AI presents real opportunities, but it also raises particular questions for a sector where trust, rights, reputation and creative integrity are central to value.”
The CoSTAR AI for Creativity initiative has been developed to provide a joined-up offer to Creative Industries firms across the UK – including access to funding, infrastructure, business support, research expertise, events and knowledge sharing opportunities. The central aim is to support companies on their journey to AI adoption, while preserving and promoting essential principles around responsible AI, control of IP, and human creativity. It is important that the Government’s Plan recognises the value of many of these activities, which align with its observations and recommendations.
The AI for Creativity initiative was delighted that Sally was able to join us as a keynote speaker for our recent webinar on Creative Work in the Age of AI: Tools, Practice and the Road Ahead where she shared her insights on the development of the Plan and next steps.
The CoSTAR Network are delivering a number of activities that speak to this vision and the alignment of innovation, creativity and trust.
CoSTAR research, including AI in the Screen Sector: Perspectives and Paths Forward and Time to ACCCT: an AI copyright framework for UK creative industries, has set the scene for our approach to responsible AI innovation and targeted support programmes for companies. We publish a regularly updated bank of industry case studies that surface real-world examples of AI in practice that align well with the Plan’s call for “curated examples of safe and effective AI adoption that reduce perceived risk of AI across the sector and support knowledge-sharing.” We are also conducting a programme of mapping on workforce and skills transitions and needs, working with creative practitioners. The ambition with this work, aligned with the Plan's recommendation to support skills, leadership and workforce transition, is to anticipate and shape industry training and standards to support the management of change.
Our ongoing series of industry workshops and webinars create crucial spaces for the peer learning opportunities set out in the Plan as “forums for organisations to exchange lessons, show what works, and collaborate”. We see these opportunities as vital for encouraging meaningful knowledge exchange within the industry, connecting practitioners, policymakers, academics and creators across the ecosystem. Our next workshop, focussed on AI and the Future of Animation, will be taking place in July with further workshops providing practical guidance and frameworks around ethics and sustainability in AI following in the Autumn.
CoSTAR also offers crucial access to AI compute infrastructure to support creative R&D and adoption activities, with our full-scale compute cluster coming online this summer. The first set of companies are already working with us to trial this infrastructure on real-world projects. Further applications for companies to access these facilities, as well as funding and expertise from CoSTAR’s UK-wide network of Labs, will open in Autumn 2026. Creative Industries companies can register their interest here. This CoSTAR package of support has been designed to provide “financial assistance that goes beyond the traditional innovation funding and helps smaller businesses explore and adopt AI responsibly”, as recommended in the Plan.
CoSTAR will also continue to provide targeted financial support and opportunities to aid responsible AI adoption: The Network has just launched Emerge-AI, a business acceleration programme that has been developed to support start-ups and SMEs entering the early growth phase in the tech and creative industries.
The path to AI adoption may not be straightforward, but the CoSTAR Network is committed to supporting this journey and are excited to build further on the AI for Creativity initiative. We look forward to working with Sally Davies, DCMS and DSIT to implement the recommendations set out in the Plan – as well as those crosscutting objectives set out across the suite of sectoral AI Adoption Plans – delivering adoption support centred upon responsible AI, control of IP and prioritising human creativity.
Read more about the CoSTAR Network, the UK’s first national R&D infrastructure for the creative industries, here.
- Becky Gregory-Clarke , Co-Head of Innovation, CoSTAR National Lab
- Professor Graham Hitchen, Director of Policy, CoSTAR Foresight Lab
- Dr Victoria Williams, Policy and Partnerships Manager, CoSTAR Foresight Lab
- Professor Frauke Zeller, Director of New Forms of Data, CoSTAR Foresight Lab