AI Tools and Workflows

We test these tools rather than sell them, and we publish what happened.

What is actually in use on a UK production, department by department, what it costs in rights and consent, what the unions and the commissioners have published, and where we stop. Every page carries the date it was last checked, because this ages in weeks.

Where this stands

Four things that are true as at September 2026.

Open

No AI agreement between Equity and Pact has been publicly confirmed

Checked September 2026

Live

EU transparency duties apply to anything delivered into an EU territory

EU AI Act Article 50, since August 2026

~300

Netflix titles using generative AI workflows this year, the largest concentration of that work in post-production

Netflix Q2 2026 shareholder letter, July 2026

Off

OpenAI’s Sora: web and app discontinued, API discontinued

April and September 2026

Adoption is real and concentrated: post and VFX, editorial, post sound and the production office. On UK scripted drama it is close to nowhere, and nothing in this field has timecode, genlock or lens metadata. Last checked September 2026.

Ways in

Start with whichever sentence sounds most like you.

I don’t even know what that really means

No jargon, ten words that unlock most conversations, and what your default settings are already doing.

What has anybody official actually said?

Pact, Equity, Bectu, the WGA, SAG-AFTRA, the BBC, Netflix, BAFTA, the BFI and the law. Quoted and dated, including who has published nothing.

Can I use this on a paid job?

Price, status, what the vendor says about training data, and the date we last looked.

We are about to buy something

Ten questions to ask a vendor, and the clauses to get written down.

I have been asked to sign something

Scanning, likeness and voice. What a fair consent looks like, and what to ask beforehand.

What do you think about all this?

Our refusals, each grounded in a published position rather than an opinion.

By department

Where it is genuinely used, and where it is nowhere.

VFX and finishing

The mature case, and the one tool here that is rights-clean by construction.

Editorial and assembly

The highest verified UK adoption, and the least discussed.

Sound and post sound

Good tools, and the sharpest consent line in the industry.

Production office

Breakdown and scheduling, and the paperwork that is personal data.

Design, look and the camera department

Concept, costume, previs, and what post is now permitted to do to your images.

Virtual production

Where real-time graphics end and generated backings stop holding.

Performers and digital likeness

The hardest one. Read it before you consent to anything.

The Lab

What the Lab does.

A test says what happened when people at every level of experience used the tool on a real task, including the days it failed. Nothing is rated from a launch video.

Tool testing and evaluation

Your product in front of a head of department and somebody who has never used one, on the same brief, on the same day.

AI literacy training

Short formats for the departments that get none. Rights and refusal are in every format, because a person who cannot decline has not been taught anything.

Consented capture

The same scene shot on 35mm and digital at once, with a signed training release from everyone involved. The scarce thing is footage somebody is provably allowed to train on.

Testing runs under mutual non-disclosure. Timing is agreed and anything factually wrong is corrected, but publication is never conditional on a good result. We hold no commercial relationship with any company named anywhere in this section, and nothing in this section is legal advice.