The creative industries are a BridgeAI priority sector — but they also face the UK’s thorniest open AI question: copyright. Here are the real funding routes plus the key caveat for 2026, cited to official sources. (dgm implements osFoundry as an independent partner.)

BridgeAI: creative industries is a named target sector

The most relevant route is BridgeAI — the £100m Innovate UK programme driving AI adoption in high-growth, lower-AI-maturity sectors, explicitly including creative industries. It offers an AI Adoption Framework, funding competitions, training and compute vouchers, and was set to expand after Autumn Budget 2025.

R&D relief, creative reliefs and KTPs

  • R&D tax relief (merged scheme) — for genuine technological development (e.g. a novel content-processing or generation system), not routine use of creative AI tools.
  • Creative-sector tax reliefs — separate reliefs exist for qualifying film, TV, video games and theatre productions, but these are about production costs, not AI adoption. Check eligibility with your accountant; don’t conflate them with AI funding.
  • KTPs — build AI/data capability with a university partner (~67% funded for SMEs).

For creative businesses, AI funding isn’t the only consideration — copyright is unresolved. The UK government has a statutory duty to report on copyright and AI, and text-and-data-mining rules for training remain contested. If you use generative AI, be careful about training-data provenance and rights, and take legal advice. This is a genuine, sector-specific risk.

Where osFoundry and dgm fit

dgm scopes and implements creative AI use cases on osFoundry with data and IP control in mind: bring-your-own-key so you choose your models, and self-hosting so your content and prompts stay under your control rather than flowing through a third party. For UK data-sensitive work we’d use an EU region or self-hosted deployment (osFoundry publishes US/EU/JP regions, not a UK one).

dgm is an independent integration partner with zero integrations so far, and not a grant-writing or legal service. BridgeAI support comes from Innovate UK; rights and legal decisions stay with you. To scope a responsible creative-AI project, book a consultation with dgm. General information, not legal or funding advice.