Drawing boundaries: How creative practitioners navigate precarity in AI-embedded creative work

Abstract

As generative artificial intelligence (AI) continues to grow within creative industries, existing research has examined its implications for creative labour. However, much of this work emphasises AI’s impact on efficiency gains or creativity, offering limited insight into how practitioners adopt AI tools and negotiate human-AI boundaries in practical contexts under conditions of creative precarity. To bridge the gaps, this study applies boundary work theory to examine how creative practitioners redefine what remains distinctly human in AI-mediated creative production. Based on 21 interviews with practitioners in the UK film, gaming and live performance sectors, findings show that, in creative work, boundaries between human and AI systems are neither predefined nor passively adjusted to, but are actively shaped, expanded, and maintained in real-world settings. We argue that the adoption of AI is not a simple technical adjustment but a process through which professional value and the dynamic of creative work are reconsidered and re-constituted. Practitioners intentionally engage in boundary activities to navigate the unstable work environment associated with AI integration, enabling them to defend the role of creator. Theoretically, this study demonstrates the explanatory power of boundary work theory for understanding AI-embedded creative production and identifies that boundaries are not drawn by practitioners alone but through the interplay of technological capacities, project demands, and the legal environment. Practically, it suggests the need to redesign creative workflows and refresh professional skill sets to maintain meaningful human control while also facilitating efficient human-AI collaboration.