Octavio Kulesz presents the rationale and main lines of action for the Global AI Agenda for the Cultural and Creative Industries, a strategic framework prepared by the Global Creative Economy Council (GCEC).
A little over three years have passed since the launch of ChatGPT, yet AI, especially in its generative forms, has already transformed the cultural and creative sectors beyond recognition. The global integration of AI tools is disrupting industry structures that took decades to build. And while these transformations are creating extraordinary opportunities, they are also introducing new challenges and risks on a scale that is unprecedented.
It is in this context that the GCEC set out to develop a guide to help the cultural and creative industries address the rise of AI. A Global AI Agenda for the Cultural and Creative Industries, supports the design of national, regional and international strategies in a landscape that is changing at remarkable speed.
Structural Shifts
The challenges posed by AI in the cultural sphere are both structural and accelerating. The pace of technological change alone creates a persistent mismatch with the slower rhythms of public policy, which often results in fragmented regulatory responses (or, in many cases, no response at all). At the same time, deeper tensions are becoming entrenched. Many AI systems remain biased toward dominant languages and cultural contexts, with tangible effects on entire populations. Questions of authorship, consent and remuneration have become increasingly urgent, as artists and creative professionals see their works absorbed into training datasets without clear authorisation or compensation. AI is already reshaping the labour market, with a growing number of roles being partially displaced. In addition, the rapid spread of synthetic content is reshaping the web as we know it. These developments are further compounded by rising energy demands and the staggering environmental footprint of AI.
Yet, despite these tensions, the same transformations are bringing remarkable opportunities. Across different regions, new initiatives are demonstrating that AI can be developed in ways that are culturally sensitive and aligned with community needs. More broadly, AI technologies offer the possibility of significantly expanding the creative potential of artists, enabling new forms of expression, experimentation and collaboration that were previously unimaginable. For cultural and creative industries, these tools can also drive a substantial increase in productivity and foster new business models.
All these impacts (both positive and negative) are set to intensify with the widespread adoption of AI agents. If generative AI began with assistants and content generators that responded to user prompts, we are now entering an era in which AI systems can pursue multi-step goals, make decisions and execute tasks with limited human supervision. In this context, the stage is set for an exponential acceleration.
As investment in AI gathers momentum, many point to a degree of exuberance that at times seems almost irrational, leading to descriptions of the current moment as a financial bubble. It is true that some segments and companies may indeed exhibit such characteristics, and abrupt corrections in market valuations cannot be ruled out. AI as a technology, however, does not appear to be either a bubble or a passing trend, and the structural transformation it is driving is unlikely to slow down.
Reclaiming Agency
The key actions set out in the Global AI Agenda seek to harness the benefits of AI while mitigating its risks. At its core, the Global AI Agenda calls for restoring human agency in imagining and shaping the future of culture, in ways that ensure pluralism, equity, sustainable growth and the dignity of creators.
The new AI Agenda inherits both the structure and the spirit of A Global Agenda for the Cultural and Creative Industries, written by the GCEC in 2021. The Global AI Agenda is likewise organised around 11 key actions, interdependent and mutually reinforcing, presented without hierarchy.
A Multidimensional Agenda: Eleven Points, Four Interconnected Clusters
The Global AI Agenda draws on GCEC member expertise, a literature review and interviews with stakeholders. Although each of the 11 key actions stands on its own, certain affinities can be drawn between them.
A first set of actions focuses on strengthening the creative value chain:
- Investing in AI skills
- Promoting AI literacy and awareness
- Nurturing AI-driven entrepreneurship and innovation, and
- Unlocking the potential of intellectual property in the AI age
These are the enabling conditions: the cognitive, economic and legal capacities the sector needs to make active and informed use of AI technologies, rather than remain passively dependent on them.
The second cluster is concerned with safeguarding cultural plurality and fundamental rights:
- Fostering diverse and inclusive creative ecosystems and
- Protecting rights and human dignity
Together, these address two major structural risks of unchecked AI in cultural domains: the homogenisation of expressions through biased models, with particular consequences for indigenous knowledge, minority languages and locally grounded narratives, and the erosion of personal rights through deepfakes, impersonation and the unauthorised replication of voice and style.
A third grouping centres on building sustainable AI foundations:
- Strengthening digital and AI infrastructure and
- Making AI applications in the cultural and creative sectors environmentally sustainable
Both points speak to the materiality of AI, the often-overlooked reality that behind every model lie servers, networks, energy, water and critical minerals. Much of the future of AI in the cultural and creative sectors may rest on smaller, more efficient and more domain-adapted models (small-scale language models, task-specific systems), on shared infrastructures, and on a serious reckoning with the environmental footprint of the systems we deploy.
A fourth set of actions is organised around coordinating knowledge and governance across scales:
- Investing in research and knowledge
- Fostering local collaboration, and
- Advancing international cooperation
Without comparative evidence, continuous monitoring and new forms of cultural statistics, areas where AI itself can help capture informality and integrate diverse data sources, policy advances blindly. Without horizontal articulation across ministries, sectors and communities, even well-designed policies fail to take hold. Without stronger North–South and South–South cooperation, efforts to build shared frameworks, support capacity building and ensure transparency and accountability will remain limited.
A Living Framework
The Global AI Agenda is intended, first and foremost, to support the public sector, enabling governments at the national, regional and municipal levels to lead strategic responses where their work, directly or indirectly, intersects with the creative economy. Crucially, this calls for a coordinated approach in which ministries of culture play a key role, in collaboration with other relevant public agencies that range from education and labour to digital affairs, environment, trade and foreign policy.
The Global AI Agenda is designed to be useful for creative companies and organisations, enabling them to actively engage with and shape AI technologies. It is also intended for civil society as a whole, fostering a better understanding of ongoing transformations and facilitating access to high-quality AI literacy.
The Global AI Agenda is not a rigid standard but a living framework, capable of evolving in response to technological change and national specificities.
We should not forget that what we call “artificial” is, at its root, something made with art. It is precisely here that the cultural and creative sector holds a privileged position: not merely as a domain affected by AI, but as a community uniquely placed to imagine and design the technological transformations of the coming decade.
Photo by Steve A Johnson: https://www.pexels.com/photo/abstract-art-modern-render-12627677/
