No topic generates more controversy than using artificial intelligence (AI) in the creative industries. In 2024, AI experienced explosive growth, and the creative industry’s fear around creative generation reached fever pitch.
It’s almost impossible to make specific predictions about the growth of technology. However, given the increase in AI over the last few years, it’s possible to make educated guesses as to how AI will continue to grow in 2025 and the impact it will have on the creative industries.
Advanced AI will become more expensive
So far, consumer AI has been relatively cheap or free to use. The biggest example, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is open-source. But as AI continues to grow and become mainstream, the world’s most significant users of AI will begin charging more for use.
This will be most overt in marketing. The use of AI in marketing to specific audiences has become ubiquitous for a decade or more, as artists and organisations have no choice but to embrace social media to reach their audience. As this technology becomes more refined and powerful, the big companies will charge more for its use. That means a new budget line for many arts organisations: AI licensing.
Trump and Musk’s bro-mance will have international effects on AI
No two individuals may be more challenging to predict than Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Therefore, their eventual falling out is probably inevitable, as predicted by Forbes and others. This could have tectonic effects on the AI industry.
Musk takes existential AI safety risks incredibly seriously and advocates for AI regulation. Of course, as the CEO of a major technology company (Tesla), Musk has a huge stake in how that regulation shakes out. If Musk and Trump have a falling out, however, and Trump takes other advice, regulation could ease.
There will be no resolution in the battle to protect artists from AI
In 2023, the American Screen Actor’s Guild went on a historic strike. At the heart of their negotiations were concerns over using AI in using actors’ and writers’ identities and intellectual properties. While a tentative resolution had some basic protections in place, concern over the use of AI remains.
In 2024, the Australian Senate tabled its final report from the Select Committee on Adopting Artificial Intelligence. It listed 13 recommendations, including: “That the Australian Government urgently undertake further consultation with the creative industry to consider an appropriate mechanism to ensure fair remuneration is paid to creators for commercial AI-generated outputs based on copyrighted material used to train AI systems.”
That ‘urgent consultation’ should take place in 2025. However, it’s a federal election year, and in the meantime, AI is largely outpacing lawmakers worldwide.
AI will become a normalised part of most offices
If you’re not using AI engines as part of your daily workload yet, 2025 will probably be the year that you do. AI is now integrated into most web browsers and is an invisible feature of most search engines and social media platforms.
Many in the creative industries are optimistic about the use of AI. CEO of A New Approach, Kate Fielding says that AI shouuld not be considered a threat to creativity. “AI will be part of securing Australia’s place as a cultural powerhouse,” she says. “Arts, culture and creativity can help Australians work out how to apply AI in safe, innovative and inclusive ways, as well as contributing to debate about the role of this technology in society.”
Most arts organisations are already using AI in their marketing strategies. Further growth and implementation of AI likely means a deeper understanding of audience analytics, programming successes and vulnerabilities, and more sophisticated analyses of project budgets.
