Research

2026 Visual Effects & Animation World Atlas

HDRI Intelligence (Joseph Bell) · Joseph Bell

• The 2026 Atlas counts more than 140,000 VFX and animation professionals at 2,900 companies, with net workforce growth of 2.7 percent over 12 months.
• AI-specific roles are 0.1 percent of roles at traditional VFX and animation studios, up 68 percent in a year; the data shows no evidence of AI-driven job cuts.
• Los Angeles contracted 1.5 percent while Vancouver rebounded 11.3 percent; Mumbai is now the largest VFX hub in the world, and roto and paint roles grew 8.7 percent.

Production & craft Labour & workforce

A collaborative creation framework for experimental animation pedagogy integrating generative artificial intelligence and vibe coding

Frontiers in Psychology · Yadan Mao

• A five-week experimental animation course at Soochow University ran generative AI and Cursor-based vibe coding with 40 third-year digital media art students.
• Extraneous cognitive load fell from 3.91 to 2.90 and AI-partner perception rose from 3.30 to 4.09 across the course; there was no control group.
• Generative AI flattened non-human motion into scaling, drifting and morphing, so students coded the motion mechanics themselves; a final collaboration statement covered authorship.

Generative techniques Teaching, curriculum & assessment

Generative AI adoption in 3D animation production: a pipeline-wide empirical benchmark of early-career practitioner perceptions and the HGAI hybrid pipeline framework

Multimedia Tools and Applications · Sandeep Maithani

• A 2026 survey of 126 students, educators and early-career practitioners found generative AI used most in pre-production (storyboarding 45.6 percent, concept art 41.6 percent) and least in rigging (16 percent) and denoising (10.4 percent).
• Mean perceived reliability of current tools was 2.95 out of 5 (SD 1.07), with output inconsistency the dominant barrier at 46.4 percent; professionals adopt more intensively than students but rate reliability the same.
• The paper proposes a three-phase human-guided AI (HGAI) pipeline: AI-led pre-production, a hybrid mid-pipeline, and human-led technical stages.

Generative techniques Teaching, curriculum & assessment Labour & workforce

What UK university AI policies actually do: a study of 96 institutions (HEPI Policy Note 71)

Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) · Illingworth, S.

• Analysis of UK university AI policies finds 41 per cent of 163 degree-awarding institutions have no easily findable public AI policy.
• Four exemplar policies are named, including creative-arts specialist Arts University Plymouth.
• A policy's hosting location predicts its function: misconduct-framework policies enforce compliance, learning-and-teaching policies educate.

Teaching, curriculum & assessment Governance & guidance

Artificial Intelligence in Fine Arts Education: A Systematic Literature Review

SAGE Open · Yance Zeng, Harrinni Md Noor, Muhammad Faiz Sabri

• PRISMA systematic review of 78 peer-reviewed studies on artificial intelligence in fine arts education, covering 2019 to 2024.
• Categorises the AI techniques most used in the field, spanning generative adversarial networks, convolutional neural networks, large language models and VR/AR.
• Finds AI adoption concentrated in visual arts education, with gaps in non-visual arts domains and in primary and secondary teaching.

Teaching, curriculum & assessment

Adaptive Interpolation-Synthesis for Motion In-Betweening on Keyframe-Based Animation

SIGGRAPH 2026 Conference Papers / arXiv · Anton Raël, Julien Boucher, Antoine Lhermitte

• Animaj researchers presented a learned in-betweening method at SIGGRAPH 2026 that generates dense 3D animation from sparse blocking poses inside Autodesk Maya.
• Its Adaptive Interpolation-Synthesis layer dynamically balances learned interpolation against direct pose synthesis, accelerating the in-betweening stage by up to 3.5 times.
• The paper is the studio's first-party technical account of the AI in-betweening stage in the pipeline behind its productions, including Disney Jr's Ozzy Fox.

Production & craft

Integrating Creative Problem Solving and Generative AI in Animation Education: Advancing Sustainability-Related Competencies in Higher Education

Sustainability (MDPI) · Jui-Hsiang Lee

• A twelve-week action-research study in a Taiwanese university animation storytelling course (N=60) combined Creative Problem Solving scaffolding with six generative AI assignments.
• Students showed significant gains in CPS-related narrative cognition and affective resilience (p < 0.001), and expert judges rated final story prototypes consistently high.
• Metacognitive CPS scaffolding let students use generative AI's speed without surrendering narrative logic, a transferable design for AI-era storytelling courses.

Teaching, curriculum & assessment

Otis College Report on the Creative Economy 2026: Creative Disruption, AI and California's creative workforce

Otis College of Art and Design (with Westwood Economics and Planning Associates) · Patrick Adler, Taner Osman

• Otis College's April 2026 research finds California's creative economy shed about 22,300 jobs in 2025, a 2.9 percent fall.
• The research finds AI is not the main cause of those losses: industry restructuring, cost pressures and changing consumption patterns are.
• Core creative workers grew 2.1 percent while creative wages rose 23 percent, so support roles are being shed rather than creative ones.

Art, Design and AI Educator's Toolkit: values-led generative AI in design education

Association for Learning Technology (ALT) blog

• Openly licensed toolkit for values-led generative AI teaching in art and design higher education, funded by QAA and developed across three UK institutions.
• Named contributors include Ruth Powell (UAL) and Lucy-Ann Pickering (NTU), with Norwich University of the Arts as a partner.
• Structured around four design-cycle stages: research, ideation, experimentation and iteration, and design communication, with classroom-ready activities, case studies and values-based prompt cards.

Teaching, curriculum & assessment

HEPI Student Generative AI Survey 2026

Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) · Stephenson, R., Armstrong, C.

• HEPI's 2026 survey finds 95 per cent of UK undergraduates use AI, and 94 per cent use generative AI for assessed work.
• Arts and humanities students are particularly likely to feel under-supported in developing AI skills.
• Students directly including AI-generated text in assessed work rose to 12 per cent, from 8 per cent in 2025 and 3 per cent in 2024.

Teaching, curriculum & assessment Governance & guidance

Path of practical teaching of AI technology in animation majors

Discover Artificial Intelligence (Springer Nature) · Zhang, J., Guan, X.

• Empirical study constructing an animation practice teaching path that integrates generative AI with a Transformer-based human pose estimation model.
• The optimised pose estimation model reduced error to 0.15 and lifted animation generation quality scores to 92 points.
• The AI-integrated teaching group significantly outperformed the traditional group on both technical application and artistic creation indicators.

Production & craft Teaching, curriculum & assessment

Integrating generative AI in higher art education: a systematic review

SN Computer Science (Springer Nature) · Fang, Z.

• PRISMA systematic review of 27 studies on generative AI integration in higher art education across visual arts, design and STEAM.
• Generative AI consistently supports early-stage creative exploration, enhancing divergent thinking and reducing affective barriers for novice learners.
• The review identifies a persistent gap: AI accelerates conceptual generation but offers limited support for execution phases requiring embodied practice.

Teaching, curriculum & assessment

Human-AI Co-Creation or Conflict? Art Students' Perspectives on Creative Identity

Education and Information Technologies

• Q methodology study of 40 university art students including animation, visual arts, design and music.
• Identifies five student stances from authorship guardian to enthusiastic explorer.
• Shows creative identity, not tool skill, is the axis on which student responses to AI divide.

Teaching, curriculum & assessment

OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026: Exploring Effective Uses of Generative AI in Education

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

• The OECD's 2026 Outlook examines generative AI across three scenarios: independent student use, joint classroom use, and teacher-only use.
• Heavy student reliance on generative AI without pedagogical structure tends to reduce metacognitive engagement, separating task performance from learning.
• It distinguishes replacement, complementarity and augmentation as teacher-AI modes, arguing augmentation best preserves professional judgement.

Teaching, curriculum & assessment Governance & guidance

Generative AI in higher education assessment: a scoping review

Interactive Learning Environments (Taylor and Francis) · Ng, S. H. S., Chan, H. Y., Wong, J. H. K., Sam, L., Privitera, A. J.

• Scoping review mapping generative AI in higher education assessment from June 2020 to February 2024 across 68 documents.
• It identifies generative AI roles spanning assessment design, grading, feedback and academic integrity.
• The evidence base remains nascent and unevenly distributed, with narrow disciplinary coverage and limited longitudinal data.

Teaching, curriculum & assessment

AI Technologies and Emerging Forms of Creative Practice

Arts Council England

• Analyses 194 Arts Council England-funded AI and creative practice projects across 2019 to 2025.
• Finds practitioners interrogating AI systems and prototyping ethical futures rather than passively adopting tools.
• Underpins ACE's position statement on AI in funding applications.

Production & craft Teaching, curriculum & assessment Labour & workforce

Generative AI in art education: a systematic review 2019-2025

Education Sciences (MDPI)

• PRISMA systematic review of 19 peer-reviewed empirical studies on generative AI in art education from January 2019 to August 2025.
• Research volume accelerated from two studies in 2023 to 14 in 2025, concentrated in higher education and East Asian contexts.
• Text-to-image models and ChatGPT were the most studied tools, applied across creative production, pedagogical scaffolding and instructional design.

Generative techniques Teaching, curriculum & assessment

Empowering Student Learning in HE with Generative AI Art Applications: Systematic Review

Information (MDPI)

• PRISMA review of 65 peer reviewed articles on AI art applications in higher education.
• Maps application domains, pedagogical practices and equity barriers in one framework.
• Identifies limited faculty training as the main equity barrier to effective adoption.

Generative techniques Teaching, curriculum & assessment

AI Use in Screenwriting Programmes in US and UK HE

Journal of Screenwriting

• Surveys 30 screenwriting programs across the US and UK, including 8 of the top 10 US programs.
• Finds cautious and uneven AI integration, with UK programs more open to experimentation.
• Raises creative voice and ethical authorship as the central pedagogical tensions.

Production & craft Teaching, curriculum & assessment Governance & guidance

AI in the Screen Sector: perspectives and paths forward (BFI / CoSTAR Foresight Lab)

British Film Institute (BFI)

• First UK-wide study of generative AI's impact across the screen sector, produced with the CoSTAR Foresight Lab (Goldsmiths, Loughborough and Edinburgh universities).
• Makes nine recommendations across collaborative frameworks, targeted support for small and micro businesses, and removal of barriers to growth.
• Documents both the scale of AI adoption across the sector and the structural disadvantages facing smaller screen-sector companies in accessing AI capabilities.

Production & craft Labour & workforce