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MSc Artificial Intelligence for the Creative Industries

Harness the power of AI for creative practice and open the door to new creative careers.

Year of entry: 2025 (September)

Length

1 year full-time,
2 years part-time

Start date

September 2025 (semester dates)

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Artificial intelligence (AI) has already made a significant impact upon our society and it continues to permeate every sector of our lives at an incredibly fast pace. We will soon cohabit with AI. We will be continuously surrounded by intelligent media in extended reality spaces and will employ AI in creative expression itself. This pioneering Masters will get you ready for this imminent future and place you on a path for an exciting career.

You'll combine creativity and technical expertise, becoming equipped with the fundamental knowledge and skills around AI, with a focus on machine learning and artificial neural networks. Working on case studies and with experts in the field, you'll apply them to understand and resolve practical problems.

You'll explore how to deal with societal and ethical implications of AI, for example around issues of copyright, privacy and fakes.

You'll draw on your own creativity to identify opportunities for industry and drive forward the discovery and application of novel AI tools. This degree will motivate, inspire and enrich your understanding of this rapidly growing field and the creative opportunities which AI offers.

Course content

The taught elements of this degree will give you the foundations for using AI in your creative practice. They provide a broad introduction to AI, a deeper training in some of the most recent techniques, and a description of some of the major successes of applying AI in creative media and practice.

Throughout the degree, you'll analyse and prototype AI driven systems, either as user-facing artefacts or as tools for creative practice. You'll be given the opportunity to select the aspects which you'll explore in more depth, in accordance with the areas of your interest.

Modules

Core modules

Option modules

You will choose one option module from examples including:

Some option module combinations may not be possible. The options available to you will be confirmed after you begin your course.

Our modules may change to reflect the latest academic thinking and expertise of our staff, and in line with Department/School academic planning.

Dissertation

  • Project/Dissertation

Your project is an opportunity to explore an area of AI in depth. You can do this either through the development of a practical application or through a critical analysis of an existing one. The project is assessed via an implemented prototype accompanied by a critical report, or an essay. You'll be supported through this project by your assigned academic supervisor.

Projects could cover areas such as:

  • AI generated art: who is the author?
  • AI generated content: from graphics to photorealism
  • AI poetry
  • Automatic correction of low quality video
  • Automatic detection of extraordinary events in esports
  • Co-writing with AI
  • Deep fakes: what is now 'real'?
  • Free dialogues with story characters
  • Theatre: Performing with intelligent robots
  • Turning data into stories

The York approach

Every course at York is built on a distinctive set of learning outcomes. These will give you a clear understanding of what you will be able to accomplish at the end of the course and help you explain what you can offer employers. Our academics identify the knowledge, skills, and experiences you'll need upon graduation and then design the course to get you there.

Students who complete this course will be able to:

  • Understand a range of AI methods, analysing and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses in the context of real-world applications for the creative industries.
  • Identify and model different ways in which AI techniques and systems can be deployed to both creative workflows and in digital objects ‘consumed’ by the end users. Evaluate their strengths and weaknesses regarding functionality and technical requirements.
  • Analyse AI systems - consisting of data sets, algorithms, software, people and contexts - as employed in creative workflows or in digital objects ‘consumed’ by the end users and determine their potential negative ethical implications accounting for copyright, privacy, safety, bias, discrimination, and manipulation (eg, through fakes).
  • Identify requirements and architect solutions (design and prototype) for novel creative applications of AI in selected areas of the Creative and Cultural Sector (music, games, film and TV, theatre cultural heritage, etc) and drive their realisations in collaboration with AI specialists.
  • Apply, customise and extend existing AI techniques and models to address specific needs (individual problems) deriving from different scenarios in creative industries, maximising code reuse and productivity.
  • Develop interactive AI-driven prototypes in selected areas of the Creative and Cultural Sector (music, games, film and TV, theatre cultural heritage, etc) that illustrate novel and original ideas for real-time selection, manipulation and creation of images and sounds.

Fees and funding

Annual tuition fees for 2025/26

Study modeUK (home)International and EU
Full-time (1 year) £13,300£31,900
Part-time (2 years)
This is the year 1 fee. Fees for future years are subject to confirmation.
£6,650£15,950

Students on a Student Visa are not currently permitted to study part-time at York.

For courses which are longer than one year, the tuition fees quoted are for the first year of study.

  • UK (home) fees may increase in subsequent years (up to a maximum of 2%).
  • International fees may increase in subsequent years in line with the prevailing Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rate (up to a maximum of 10%).

Fees information

UK (home) or international fees? The level of fee that you will be asked to pay depends on whether you're classed as a UK (home) or international student. Check your fee status.

Find out more information about tuition fees and how to pay them.

Funding information

Discover your funding options to help with tuition fees and living costs.

We'll confirm more funding opportunities for students joining us in 2025/26 throughout the year.

If you've successfully completed an undergraduate degree at York you could be eligible for a 10% Masters fee discount.

Funding opportunities

Chevening Scholarships

We are pleased to work with Chevening Scholars to offer funding for our Masters programmes. Chevening Scholarships provide one year of fully-funded postgraduate study in the UK for international (including EU) students. The scholarships are open to early and mid-career professionals who have the potential to become future leaders.

School scholarship information

Living costs

You can use our living costs guide to help plan your budget. It covers additional costs that are not included in your tuition fee such as expenses for accommodation and study materials.

Teaching and assessment

You’ll work with world‐leading academics who’ll challenge you to think independently and excel in all that you do. Our approach to teaching will provide you with the knowledge, opportunities, and support you need to grow and succeed in a global workplace.

Teaching format

The course involves a range of different teaching styles, including case study-based learning, independent study, collaborative work and practical activities. You'll be taught by research-active, creative professionals across immersive and interactive media; what you learn at York stems directly from current research and practice.

You will be assigned a personal supervisor from our teaching staff who will act as a point of contact, supporting you with your studies for the duration of the degree. They are there to provide you with advice on academic matters as well as others areas of life at the University.

Facilities

You'll have access to lab spaces equipped with powerful computers able to train and run AI modules and an impressive computing cluster. You'll also be able to access studio and rehearsal spaces, accompanied by bespoke equipment and media processing software for high quality content creation.

Discover our facilities

Teaching location

You will be based primarily in the School of Arts and Creative Technologies, with some teaching elsewhere on Campus East and Campus West

About our campus

Our beautiful green campus offers a student-friendly setting in which to live and study, within easy reach of the action in the city centre. It's easy to get around campus - everything is within walking or pedalling distance, or you can always use the fast and frequent bus service.

Assessment and feedback

The programme is assessed through a combination of essays, implemented prototypes and reports. The module options are set to encourage you to choose topics of their interest and select the assessment methods that are most suitable to you.

 

Our newly developed School of Arts and Creative Technologies building, located on Campus East.

Careers and skills

The use of AI in the creative industries is only just starting, and the opportunities around this field are growing.

Skills for employability are embedded throughout your degree. You'll work on real world case studies from the creative industry. Modules base their lectures and practicals on realistic scenarios, giving you experience of running projects and managing risks.

Career opportunities

  • Game developer
  • Content producer
  • Film post-production
  • Virtual production
  • Social media developer
  • UI/UX or web developer
  • Immersive theatre development

 

 

Transferable skills

  • Artificial intelligence techniques and design
  • Project design
  • Technical analysis
  • Investigative research
  • Critical evaluation
  • Collaborative working

Entry requirements

Typical offer
Undergraduate degree 2:2 or equivalent in a relevant subject. For those returning to study, evidence of appropriate experience will be required.
Other qualifications and experience Basic familiarity with computing skills is assumed, but no formal qualifications in Computer Science, Programming, or any other specific technical skills are required.
Other international qualifications Equivalent qualifications from your country

English language

If English isn't your first language you may need to provide evidence of your English language ability. We accept the following qualifications:

Minimum requirement
IELTS (Academic and Indicator) 6.5, minimum 6.0 in each component
Cambridge CEFR B2 First: 176, with 169 in each component
Oxford ELLT 7, minimum of 6 in each component
Duolingo 120, minimum 105 in all other components
LanguageCert SELT B2 with 33/50 in each component
LanguageCert Academic 70 with a minimum of 65 in each component
Kaplan Test of English Language 459-494, with 426-458 in all other components
Skills for English B2: Merit overall, with Pass with Merit in each component
PTE Academic 61, minimum 55 in each component
TOEFL 87, minimum of 21 in each component
Trinity ISE III Merit in all requirements

For more information see our postgraduate English language requirements.

If you haven't met our English language requirements

You may be eligible for one of our pre-sessional English language courses. These courses will provide you with the level of English needed to meet the conditions of your offer.

The length of course you need to take depends on your current English language test scores and how much you need to improve to reach our English language requirements.

After you've accepted your offer to study at York, we'll confirm which pre-sessional course you should apply to via You@York.

Applying

You can apply and send all your documentation online. You don’t need to complete your application all at once: you can start it, save it and finish it later.

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Contact us

Get in touch if you have any questions

Dr. Dar'ya Guarnera

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School of Arts and Creative Technologies

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