It’s been a hell of a time for culture. For cultural organisations in Scotland, securing Multi-Year Funding from Creative Scotland recently is a huge achievement. But for many creative companies, the amount awarded is significantly less than what they applied for. This creates a major challenge: how do you continue delivering high-quality cultural work with fewer resources?
From my past experience as Chair of the Scottish Music Industry Association (2016–2023), I’ve seen first-hand how funding constraints can put immense pressure on cultural leaders. Now, with AI evolving at an incredible pace, we have an opportunity to use technology strategically — not to replace creativity, but to enhance workflows, reach audiences more effectively and create new opportunities for sustainable growth.
Used Right, AI is Not a Threat—It’s a Powerful Tool for Cultural Innovation
The cultural sector is built on human creativity, storytelling and community. While AI is often seen as a disruptor, we believe that when used correctly, AI can be an incredible tool for cultural organisations — helping them sustain their missions, free up time for strategic thinking and improve audience engagement.
With the right approach, AI can help:
- Optimise Creative Workflows: AI-powered tools can handle administrative tasks, generate content drafts, assist in video editing and enhance creative processes. Instead of replacing human creativity, AI can serve as a powerful collaborator enabling your team to do more work with less stress.
- Enhance Audience Engagement: AI-driven insights can help cultural organisations better understand their audiences, personalise content and deliver more meaningful interactions. From AI-assisted social media management to smart audience segmentation, these tools can improve engagement while saving time.
- Improve Business Operations: from funding applications to ticketing and donor management, AI can automate routine tasks, allowing teams to focus on strategic work that requires human input.
- Navigate AI and Ethics: with AI comes important ethical considerations, particularly in the creative industries. Our approach ensures that organisations understand AI’s impact on copyright, data privacy, transparency and workforce development.
Introducing Our AI-Empowered Creative Business Productivity Workshop
To help cultural organisations harness AI’s potential while avoiding its pitfalls, we’ve developed the AI-Empowered Creative Business Productivity Workshop. (We’ve also built a tool to assess your AI readiness now.) This practical, hands-on session is designed to give teams the tools and insights they need to integrate AI into their work in a meaningful and sustainable way.
In this workshop, we’ll cover:
- AI for Creative Workflows: exploring how AI can support creative professionals in idea generation, content production and artistic processes.
- AI for Audience Engagement: understanding how AI tools can help build stronger relationships with audiences through personalisation and automation.
- AI for Business Strategy & Sustainability: examining how AI can improve funding applications, streamline operations and support strategic growth.
- AI & Ethics in the Cultural Sector: addressing key concerns around AI-generated content, copyright, transparency and responsible implementation.
The workshop is designed for cultural leaders, artists and organisations that want to embrace AI while staying true to their core values.
Why This Matters Now
The cultural sector is at a turning point. AI is already being integrated into the creative industries, from automated design tools to AI-generated music and literature. Organisations that fail to explore how AI can support their work risk falling behind. And for those participating in debates around regulation and legislation, the more you know and understand, the better you can make your case and position your argument.
By learning how to use AI strategically, cultural organisations can make the most of their resources, protect their creative integrity and build sustainable futures. We’ve created an AI Readiness Tool to assess how ready your organisation is for AI-empowerment. Complete the form at the bottom of this post to get a personalised AI Readiness Report sent to you.
Book a Workshop for Your Organisation
This interactive, tailored session provides practical insights into AI adoption, designed specifically for the cultural sector.
- Two-hour session
- Online or in-person
- Introductory price for first 20 bookings: £500+VAT (usually £950–1,250)
Interested? Let’s talk. Get in touch to explore how this workshop can help your organisation (or use the meeting scheduler below).
AI is already transforming the creative industries. Now’s the time to make sure your organisation is ready to benefit. The threats can be managed, and the opportunities are too good not to exploit. Let’s use these tools to empower our cultural sector is empowered to be the best it can be, and build on the recent funding awards to become as resilient, sustainable and ambitious as possible.
Dougal Perman
Director, Inner Ear
We also invite you to complete our AI Readiness Form to assess how AI could fit into your organisation’s work.