A Blueprint for AI and the Creative Sector

UK needs to back AI and support the creator economy

The debate around technology and the creative sectors has reached fever pitch in the thunderclap of the News Media Association’s front-page takeover of UK newspapers during the AI and copyright consultation process in February.

However, AI’s role in this debate is just fuel poured onto a fire that’s been burning for a couple of decades: the creator economy that provides tech-driven direct access to audiences, disintermediating existing media industry hierarchies.

The creator economy has grown to the point where almost 20% of Brits consider themselves creators, accordingto figures from business intelligence platform Statista. That’s 13 million people, with the vast majority sitting outside traditional creative industry businesses like music labels, publishers, TV networks and studios. The split between ‘creators’ and the ‘creative industries’ is widening rapidly, exposing the failings of legacy creative business models. And it’s becoming clear which side audiences are on.

Social video platforms like YouTube accounted for 46% – or one hour and 33 minutes per day – of 16 to 24 year-olds’ video viewing in 2023, while their broadcast TV viewing has fallen by 78% over the past decade to just 33 minutes per day (Ofcom Media Nations Report 2024). The News Media Association claimed to represent the creative industries, but omitted the awkward truth that digital is its largest subsector, adding more than double the value to the economy of the second largest, ‘film, TV, video, radio and photography’. And it includes the games industry, which did not support the campaign.

In my time working in digital media, stemming back to the mid-1990s as head of digital for Penguin Books UK, I have never seen a technology grow as quickly as AI. AI is a combination of many different evolved technologies converging at once. It is a driver of growth that is backed by all advanced nations, it is a driver of change, and it changes old models very quickly. It is here to stay. So what must we do? I have drawn up a three-step blueprint that would chart growth for the nation, and for our creators.

First, we must seize the moment to leap ahead with a new national creator network built for the AI age. The BBC and Channel 4 brands are being eroded by digital platforms that do not prioritise UK content nor cultural values, with disproportionate revenues going overseas to the likes of Google and TikTok. Sir Peter Bazalgette’s proposal to merge the BBC and Channel 4 to combat streaming platforms hints towards a strategy of managed decline.We need a new approach.

We now have clear knowledge and technical skills to build on AI foundations with start-up speed, transforming the pocket money that current models and big tech pay creators.

These foundations are already available through Charismatic.ai’s vision, which enables creators to generate and edit storylines, animated visuals and ambient soundscapes, to publish them and to be paid for them directly. Hundreds of creators were involved in its design, alongside Channel 4 and Aardman Animations, and it is funded by government-backed agency Innovate UK.

Now is the time for bold and creative solutions that can leapfrog the competition, unencumbered by analogue thinking and business models.

Second, we need to define a new economic model of growth for creators. The average annual salary for an author in the UK is £7,000. More than half of UK musicians receive less than £14,000 a year. The situation is so bad, the Bectu union has estimated that 38% of film and TV creators are considering leaving the industry.

This is not AI’s fault, it is the fault of a broken legacy economic model.

Speeding up payment

If a piece of content is purchased, there is no practical nor technical reason why the money from this purchase cannot be in the hands of the creator in seconds, with ownership and provenance tracked with a system like C2PA. Having musicians and writers wait for an occasional royalty cheque is Dickensian.

The third step is to resolve the copyright situation. Class-action threats and uncertainty are already slowing down investment and progress in UK start-ups, allowing other countries to extend their advantage. The vested interests that campaign against AI are paralysing the growth of the creative tech start-ups that enable these creators, with projected losses to the creative sector of more than £30bn in the next five years, according to tech industry lobbying group UK Day One. The UK’s approach must be future-focused and have creative growth at its heart. If we want to compete on the world stage, we need to turn up to the game with a clear, functioning and inclusive strategy that is designed for the future, not the past.

AI is the growth model for the future of individual creators – a pathway to kickstart a new and sustainable business model that can reinvigorate the UK sector from the ground up.

Brexit has taught us what damage is hidden underneath a false message of ‘Take Back Control’. Similar emotional AI messages today distract from legacy industry issues, and slow down the UK creators who pioneer the next wave of creativity that AI enables. As with so many developments before, the future lies not in humans vs technology, but in their union.

Five years from now, I want to look around and see, to quote Lindsay Anderson’s 1968 British film classic If..., that “Britain today is a powerhouse of ideas, experiments, imagination”. This needs a new model for a new age rather than looking at the future through a rear-view mirror.

What is at stake is not in some far distant future. The growth of both the creator economy and creative AI are changing the nature of the media market today, and to maintain our position as a creative nation, we need to enter the race with commitment, urgency and energy.

This post first appeared on Charismatic's Substack.