TL;DR
The Association of Illustrators (AOI) says 46% of those answering its latest survey know a client picked generative AI over them, against 32% a year earlier. The Bookseller reported the findings on 29 October. This is a trade body’s poll of 549 respondents, so it cannot speak for the whole profession, but it describes the change reaching routine commissions as well as lost jobs.
The money is real for those affected. Over half of respondents say their illustration income fell in the past 12 months, and for 22% it more than halved, though the AOI accepts that the wider economy plays a part too. Among people who could put a figure on work lost to AI, 40% estimate at least £5,000 over the year.
Changing the job, not just removing it
The more telling findings concern work that still goes to illustrators. Some 62% have met AI images in moodboards or briefs, 36% have been told to copy or redraw them, and 31% say clients expect lower fees because the tools exist. One respondent described being “stripped out of the concept and research work”. Only 7% report no change at all.
The picture varies by field. Games and interactive media show 80% exposure to AI material in briefs, and 64% in concept art and visual development report clients using AI in place of a commission. Children’s books are under less pressure, at 42%. People who consider themselves marginalised or underrepresented are much more likely to know they lost work, at 60% against 36% for others. The AOI asks what that means for newcomers if early commissions disappear.
The copyright argument
Respondents are close to unanimous on rights: 98% want AI firms to seek permission before training on protected illustration, and 97% want transparency over what was used. Asked separately, 86% said they would not let their work be licensed for training at all, and around nine in ten lack trust in existing UK legal safeguards.
That last figure lands in a live dispute: we have also reported on the Gruffalo illustrator weighing legal action against AI firms. In our view, the AOI’s numbers matter less as a measure of the whole profession than as evidence of what commissioning now looks like from the receiving end.
The report calls for clearer standards on AI in commissioning, and the AOI says it will keep campaigning on consent and licensing while developing guidance for commissioners. UK agencies, publishers and in-house creative teams may soon have a standard to measure themselves against, and should expect to be asked whether AI concepts in a brief are declared and paid for.