AI policy & guidance for arts, culture & heritage organisations
Support for cultural organisations developing practical, proportionate approaches to AI policy, guidance and governance that reflect their mission, creative practice, audiences and working culture. Projects can include consultation, policy development, staff engagement, structured experimentation and implementation, helping organisations decide where AI can be useful, where clearer boundaries are needed and where human judgement, creative expertise or existing practice should remain central.
Jocelyn Burnham is an independent AI consultant and facilitator working with arts, culture and heritage organisations. Her policy work combines sector knowledge, staff consultation, practical experimentation and facilitated discussion, helping organisations develop guidance that reflects how people actually work and what the organisation exists to support and protect.
Policy that reflects the organisation behind it.
AI policy for a cultural organisation can reach well beyond data protection and approved tools. It may touch artistic integrity, commissioning, collections, interpretation, accessibility, creative labour, environmental responsibility, public trust and the relationship between technology and professional expertise.
The starting point is the organisation itself. This means understanding how AI is already being used, where staff are uncertain, which tools and informal practices have emerged, how people feel about those uses and which parts of the organisation’s mission or values need to shape the response.
Different activities may need very different treatment. Everyday administrative or research uses may need relatively simple guidance, while creative work, public-facing content, sensitive data, collections, recruitment, funding decisions or commissioned work may require clearer boundaries and additional scrutiny.
Policy development can also include structured experimentation. Testing a tool against a real cultural use case can reveal questions about quality, authenticity, bias, rights, accessibility or audience expectations that are difficult to resolve in the abstract.
The aim is to create guidance that helps people make good decisions in context, with clear boundaries where they matter and room for professional, creative and ethical judgement where it is needed.
From organisational context to usable guidance.
The exact process depends on the organisation, but projects often move through four connected stages.
Understand how the organisation is already working. Review current policies, staff practice, approved and unofficial tools, existing experiments, concerns and decision routes. Consultation can involve leadership, staff, specialist teams, volunteers or other relevant groups, helping surface practical needs alongside questions about creativity, ethics, confidence and organisational culture.
Agree the organisation’s position and boundaries. Identify the principles that should guide decisions and connect them to the organisation’s mission, artistic purpose and responsibilities to staff, creatives and audiences. This can include deciding which uses are broadly acceptable, where additional care is needed, what should be escalated for review and where clear creative or ethical boundaries are required. The work can also consider applicants, artists, commissioned creatives, suppliers, audiences, partners or funded organisations as well as internal staff use.
Turn that position into guidance people can use. Outputs can include organisational AI policy, staff guidance, approved-tool guidance, practical decision frameworks, creative-use boundaries, escalation routes and recommendations for particular teams or activities. Sometimes the useful intervention sits outside the policy document itself, so applications, assessments, commissioning processes, procurement, consent processes or workflows can also be examined as AI becomes more common.
Help the guidance become part of working practice. This can include staff sessions, policy-to-practice workshops, leadership briefings, named points of contact and clear routes for raising new or unusual questions. Working groups, review points, small-scale experiments and regular reflection can also help the guidance develop as technology, staff practice and the wider cultural conversation change.
What a project might produce.
The final shape depends on the organisation. Some projects result in concise staff-facing guidance. Others need a wider package combining consultation, policy development, practical decision tools and support for implementation.
- AI policy or staff guidance
- Values and guiding principles
- Creative boundaries and use-case guidance
- Department-specific guidance
- Recommendations for leadership
- Implementation priorities
- Consultation findings and synthesis
- Approved-tool and data-handling guidance
- Decision frameworks and escalation routes
- Commissioning or external-facing guidance
- Policy-to-practice workshops
- Review and update processes
Built around your decisions.
Policy projects can range from a focused review of existing guidance to a wider process involving staff consultation, leadership discussion, practical experimentation and policy development.
The scope depends on what already exists, how AI is being used, the level of uncertainty within the organisation and the kinds of cultural, creative or operational decisions the policy needs to support.
Where the answers are unclear, the work can begin with listening and small-scale experimentation rather than attempting to settle every question in advance. Testing a real use case can provide evidence about quality, staff experience, rights, audience expectations and the role of human expertise before wider decisions are made.
A useful outcome may therefore be greater clarity about where AI fits within the organisation, where it does not, and which questions need to remain open for further learning.