Last year’s inaugural AI Art Assembly at Beta Festival brought together artists, researchers, cultural leaders, and policymakers to grapple with the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence in the arts. Across curated roundtables, participants explored issues such as copyright and authorship, the ethics of data use, the climate costs of AI, and the changing nature of artistic labour. While AI tools were seen to open new creative possibilities and democratise access, they also raised urgent concerns around regulation, fair remuneration, and the risk of homogenising culture. The Assembly’s purpose was not to provide fixed answers, but to establish an ongoing agenda for how the arts might navigate and shape the rapid development of AI.

This year, the AI Art Assembly will return to those questions with a sharper focus. If last year laid out the structural concerns, this year turns to how we can build the tools to inform our own policies and ensure artists and arts organisations are informed.

The Assembly aims to unpack how hype, jargon, and shifting definitions shape perception and power, and to consider how artists and cultural practitioners might help develop clearer, more critical, and more imaginative ways of talking about AI.

This event will be run as a conversation based workshop with each table led by a cultural facilitator and an expert in AI.