TLDR: International animation and creative unions united at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival to protest generative AI, asserting that the technology actively harms artists, threatens livelihoods, and undermines creative innovation, rather than supporting the industry.
International animation, video game, screenwriter, and actors’ guilds converged at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and MIFA market on June 12, 2025, to stage a significant protest against the proliferation of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in audiovisual arts and entertainment productions. The demonstration, which saw an estimated 150 individuals gather on La Paquier lawn in front of the Bonlieu, highlighted deep concerns that AI threatens creative livelihoods across the industry.
The protest was organized by a coalition of international unions, including The Animation Guild (U.S./Canada), La Guilde Francaise de Scenarists (France), SNTPCT (France), FIM (France), CSVI (Spain), AWI (Ireland), ABRACA (Belgium), Kunstenbond (Netherlands), BECTU (U.K.), and GWUI (Game Workers United Ireland). Their unified message was clear: ‘Generative AI is neither a tool, nor effective, nor cheap. It is a copying machine that is flawed, destructive and expensive to run.’
A joint statement, read by Lauri Sanders, a Belgium-based director and head of ABRACA’s AI task force, emphasized the core belief that ‘GenAI is a technology that seeks not to support artists, but to destroy them. The absence of humans is a feature, not a bug, of AI art. It is not a tool.’ Protesters argued that they do not ‘use’ generative AI but rather ‘negotiate with it to try and make it do the things we want it to do.’
U.K. animator Howard Wimshurst articulated the sentiment of many, stating, ‘The technology is a vehicle for exploitation. It’s a vehicle to extract data that people have worked their entire lives to create, they put everything into that data. It’s not just data. Data is such a reductive word, but unfortunately that is how it can be exploited. So don’t listen to them.’
The unions underscored that generative AI promises ‘only the loss of employment and livelihood for the millions of people worldwide that work at keeping the world connected through their art.’ They warned that this technology ‘actively pushes creatives out of their respective industries, which will not only lead to the inevitable loss of knowledge and talent that will never be recuperated fully, but also directly leads to the privatisation of all art process and thinking.’
This protest comes at a time when the animation industry is already grappling with significant economic challenges, including the fluctuating economics of streaming, mass layoffs, increased outsourcing, and industry mergers and acquisitions. The unions contend that generative AI exacerbates these issues, posing an ‘immediate threat to creative innovation and renewal, replacing the richness and diversity that characterize human creativity with a creativity shaped by the biases of those controlling and using it.’
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(Note: While the provided news summary was dated August 24, 2025, internet searches indicate the actual protest at the Annecy Festival occurred in June 2025.)
