AI Widens the Gap Between Freelance and Employed Creatives

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While freelancers feel the financial sting of AI, employed creatives appear far more optimistic. According to Boekmanstichting’s research, full-time artists are twice as likely to view AI as a productivity tool, particularly in administrative roles like fundraising and management.

Researcher Sita Struijke warns this divide is deepening inequality in an already fragile labor market. Freelancers, she says, were vulnerable long before AI entered the picture.

Experts at the Netherlands Institute for Social Research note that technological disruption isn’t new to the arts — but the speed of change is unprecedented. As translators and stock photographers face intense AI competition, creative unions are now calling for transition funds to retrain and upskill artists for an AI-shaped future.