BFI’s New Report Charts a Responsible Path for AI in UK Film and TV

The British Film Institute (BFI) has released an important new report, AI in the Screen Sector: Perspectives and Paths Forward, offering nine thoughtful recommendations to help the UK’s film and television industry harness artificial intelligence responsibly. As AI tools increasingly shape content creation, the BFI aims to ensure these technologies become a positive force supporting creativity, protecting creators, and fostering sustainability and inclusion.

Generative AI is already transforming the way stories are told, from scriptwriting to editing and even subtitling. However, the report raises a crucial concern: many AI models are trained on large volumes of copyrighted material, including more than 100,000 scripts, often without permission or compensation. This practice risks undermining the economic model of the screen sector by devaluing intellectual property and threatening the livelihoods of creators.

Beyond copyright, the report also highlights the need to address the environmental impact of AI’s energy use, the importance of safeguarding human creative control, and the risk of bias in AI-generated content. It calls for investment in training and skills development to prepare the industry workforce for new ways of working, ensuring that AI benefits everyone not just those with the biggest budgets or technical expertise.

Promising initiatives are already underway. The Charismatic consortium, backed by Channel 4 and Aardman Animations, aims to make AI tools accessible to creators regardless of their scale or experience. Meanwhile, organizations like the BBC, the BFI National Archive, and the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) are exploring AI’s potential to improve subtitling, metadata generation, and content classification, boosting accessibility and efficiency.

The BFI’s nine recommendations emphasize the need for clear legal frameworks, ethical AI practices, environmental responsibility, and inclusive access. By fostering collaboration between creators, technologists, and policymakers, the UK can maintain its position as a global leader in screen production and creative innovation ensuring that AI enhances, rather than diminishes, the future of storytelling.