Global Insights and Lessons for Policy and Legislative Approaches to AI and the Screen Sector

The CoSTAR Foresight Lab has been assessing the opportunities, challenges and biggest future-facing impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Creative Industries across a broad range of outputs, frameworks, and methodologies.

AI is no longer a future consideration for the Creative Industries – it is embedded in the everyday across development, production, editing, and distribution. At the same time, AI is raising complex questions on rights, responsible adoption, labour and workforce, sustainability, and public trust.

Within this context, global screen sector consultancy Olsberg·SPI, has delivered a comprehensive study into the rapidly evolving relationship between AI, policy, and the Creative Industries, with a specific focus on the screen sector. The study explores how AI is reshaping production processes and business models – drawing from earlier Foresight Lab reports, including the BFI’s AI in the Screen Sector: Perspectives and Paths Forward report – while also examining the governance and regulatory challenges that accompany these shifts. Through international case studies – Australia, California, Canada and France – the research considers how different jurisdictions are approaching AI policy, how screen sector organisations are experiencing its impacts in practice, and which lessons are most relevant for the UK as its own AI policy framework continues to develop.

The study combines extensive desk research with 24 in-depth consultations across policy, research, training, and industry. Contributors include UK stakeholders alongside experts from each case study jurisdiction. Emerging findings were tested with the CoSTAR Foresight Lab consortium and UK public policy representatives.

Technology Tracking

This report marks the launch of a new series of thematic publications from the CoSTAR Foresight Lab. The Lab’s work is focused on mapping the current and future landscape of technology-driven research, development and innovation across screen, games, live performance and digital entertainment. Through international mapping and comparative trend analysis, the thematic report series will examine how emerging technologies are reshaping creative production, business models and policy frameworks worldwide. Each publication will place UK strengths and challenges in a broader global context, tracking key developments, dynamics, and regulatory responses over time.

Focusing on AI as a critical and fast-moving area of change, this first report assesses how different jurisdictions are approaching AI governance, the balance between innovation and protection, and the implications for the screen sector. Together, the series aims to support evidence-based policy discussion and strategic decision-making at a moment of significant transformation for the Creative Industries.

Why these four jurisdictions?

Australia, California, Canada, and France provide a diverse set of perspectives across continents, regulatory traditions and market structures, all with established screen sectors. They were also identified in CoSTAR’s Creative Technologies International Scan as key reference points due to recent policy developments and industrial action. The goal was not global coverage, but meaningful comparison – highlighting distinctive approaches, shared challenges and transferable lessons for the UK.

The study identifies several recurring themes – and lessons for the UK:

1. AI is no longer experimental in the screen sector. International evidence shows it is already embedded across development, production and post-production workflows, often in ways that remain invisible to audiences. While adoption is accelerating, governance, skills and access to infrastructure are evolving unevenly – creating both opportunity and risk for the screen sector and the wider Creative Industries.

2. Regulatory approaches remain fragmented and early-stage. Across Australia, Canada, France, and California AI governance for the screen sector (and the wider Creative Industries) is developing in pieces rather than as a coherent system. Voluntary frameworks in Australia, state-level and labour-led protections in California, stalled federal legislation in Canada, and the combination of the EU AI Act with domestic policy in France illustrate the challenges of operating across borders. For the UK, this reinforces the importance of a proportionate, sector-specific approach aligned with international standards, while retaining flexibility for screen productions.

3. Copyright and rights management sit at the centre of global debate. All four jurisdictions identified copyright as the primary legal lever for protecting creators and screen businesses. Disputes over training data, questions of authorship, and contractual protections negotiated through collective agreements point to the same conclusion: ongoing legal uncertainty risks undermining confidence and investment unless clarified. For the UK, addressing authorship, text and data mining, and opt-out mechanisms is increasingly urgent.

4. Labour protections are shaping AI use where legislation has lagged. The high-profile WGA/SAG-AFTRA action in the US and collective bargaining outcomes in Canada demonstrate how workforce organisations are actively defining acceptable uses of AI in screen production. These examples underline the need for the UK to engage proactively with unions and guilds, combining collective agreements with statutory backstops to ensure consistent protections across the sector.

5. Innovation must be balanced with cultural protection and sovereignty. International approaches reveal clear tensions between commercialisation and safeguarding cultural value. Concerns about AI models trained predominantly on US or Anglophone data are widespread, with risks of cultural bias and marginalisation. France and Australia have begun investing in home-grown models and datasets to protect cultural specificity – a lesson highly relevant to the UK’s diverse creative ecology.

6. Skills and capacity gaps threaten to widen existing inequalities. While larger organisations and established production hubs are better positioned to adopt AI, smaller firms, freelancers, and regional producers often lack access to expertise and training. International evidence highlights the importance of targeted skills programmes that combine technical, creative, and interpersonal capabilities to support inclusive adoption across the sector.

7. Transparency and sustainability are emerging priorities. Companies remain cautious about disclosing AI use, and the environmental costs of model training and deployment are often poorly understood. Developing safe transparency frameworks alongside better measurement of environmental impacts will be critical to building trust and supporting responsible innovation.

8. The UK’s competitiveness will depend on how AI is governed, not just how quickly it is adopted. Clear IP and data safeguards, shared infrastructure, workforce development, labour protections and ongoing evidence-gathering will be essential to ensuring that AI strengthens creativity, cultural diversity and resilience in the UK creative sector – rather than exacerbating existing inequalities.

What does all this mean for the future?

AI is now a permanent feature of the screen, games, live performance and other sectors within the Creative Industries. Whether it ultimately strengthens the sector, creating new possibilities for UK innovation in content creation, whether it creates new job opportunities, whether it widens or narrows inequalities, will depend on the choices made now – around governance, skills, infrastructure and sustainability. International evidence shows that static rules are not enough. Policymakers and industry will need continued research and up-to-date intelligence, including the CoSTAR Foresight Lab’s international scanning work, to translate innovation into policy frameworks that protect creators, support growth and keep the UK competitive.