Collaborator or competitor: What does AI mean for the creative process?

Artificial intelligence has entered the creative industries with a bang, and it feels both exciting and unsettling at the same time. AI is already in the writers’ room, the edit suite, in visual development, marketing teams, and increasingly, on screen. The past year has been defined by creative experiments that make us question the direction we’re heading in: are we shaping AI as a creative partner, or are we letting it reshape us?

Where do we draw the line?

Last year, Channel 4 used an AI presenter, and it made this question very real. The broadcaster framed it as a thought experiment: what does it mean to hand over a journalistic role to a synthetic host? And it became a significant talking point. It made audiences question their instincts about authenticity and trust, but it also made the industry pause. Because if AI can convincingly take on the role of a presenter, what else can it do?

The response to Tilly Norwood, the synthetic performer, was also a conversation around ethics. Performers and unions asked what this means for authorship, ownership, and the origins of the data used to train synthetic identities. The AI performer actually made us champion the value we place on lived experience and personal expression.

And then we heard the news that OpenAI had abruptly shut down its Sora video generation app technology, which had stunned Hollywood with its ability to create lifelike, IP‑rich footage. In doing so, they triggered Disney’s withdrawal from a planned $1 billion licensing and investment deal.  The move caught everyone by surprise, and it reignited debate across the creative sector about the risks of delegating too much cultural production to systems built on vast, ‘murky’ training data.  What emerged was another reminder that the integration of AI into creative workflows raises unresolved questions about authorship, consent, and the stewardship of cherished cultural worlds.

Creative intention means as much as the end-product

From a research and insight perspective, moments like these are cultural pressure points. They reveal what audiences actually care about, and show that, although people respond to the finished product, they also react to the intent behind it. AI can produce an endless flow of content, but the emotional source of a story remains really important.

Many industry leaders, including Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, speak about AI with optimism, and rightly so. They see opportunity in the promise of efficiency, speed and creative expansion. AI can remove some of the friction that slows down development, and can help teams iterate faster and visualise ideas earlier. For creators under pressure to deliver more with less, these benefits are tangible.  So how do we bring AI into the creative process without allowing it to dilute what we rely on to make meaning?

There’s power in the discomfort of the creative process

Creativity isn’t just a sequence of clever ideas, it’s shaped by memory, culture, emotion and the countless influences we absorb every day. It comes from lived experience, and that’s why audiences respond to storytellers who bring perspective, vulnerability and vision.

AI can support the storytelling process, but it can’t originate experiences. This isn’t necessarily a failing of the tech – it’s simply a reminder that creativity gains its power from human intent. When AI enters the process with boundaries, it becomes a helpful collaborator. When it enters without them, it replaces the discomfort that forces us to think, challenge and grow.

For those of us who study audience behaviour, this moment in time makes us reflect on how people might respond to a future of synthetic creativity. Will viewers, listeners and readers come to expect frictionless content and lose their appetite for the unpredictability of human creativity? Will AI make real human work feel more valuable, more textured and more alive by comparison?

If we look back, history gives us some clues. We continue to celebrate the artistry of musicians who play with imperfection. We admire actors whose performances feel truly lived. We respond to writing that reveals something that can’t be condensed into data. Audiences gravitate toward real-life authenticity, even when technology offers a polished alternative. As AI becomes more capable, people may look more consciously and favourably for the signs of the human hand.

There is also a deeper existential question that sits beneath all the practical ones. When AI is eager to think for us, are we at risk of thinking less for ourselves? Creativity has always been a way for people to test their own ideas and stretch their imagination. If that process becomes too automated, we will inevitably lose the skills and instincts that make creative cultures vibrant.

Finding authenticity in a future of synthetic creativity

For television, film, music, theatre and the wider arts, the question is not whether AI will play a role in future creativity. It already does. The challenge is how we maintain the value and visibility of human creativity within that world. AI can help us build, explore and discover, but it cannot feel. It doesn’t care. It can’t be transformed by a story or changed by a performance. Those qualities remain uniquely human.

As I see it, the industry is standing at a crossroads. One path leads toward a future where AI becomes a powerful building block that strengthens creative work by easing the burden of process. The other leads toward a world where convenience overtakes intention and creative expression becomes repetitive. The direction we choose will shape not only what we make, but how audiences experience culture in the years ahead.

AI is transforming the creative industries, and the real opportunity lies in shaping that transformation so it enriches the culture we share. When we stay intentional about the role we want technology to play, we safeguard the human spark at the core of every story, every performance, and every idea. That spark is what makes creativity meaningful – and it’s not something that can be easily replaced.