HEPI's Student Generative AI Surveys (2025 and 2026) report rising rates of AI use by students in support of assessed work, and a recent HEPI policy note reviews AI policy across 96 UK universities. Institutions across the sector are developing curricula, assessment approaches and policy in response.
This session invites members to share how generative AI is being encountered and used by staff and students.
Event Timetable
10:00 – 10:05 Welcome and introductions
10:05 – 10:20 Presentation 1 – Tina Saul, Creative AI in practice: what educators need from industry
10:20 – 10:35 Presentation 2 – Indrani Lahiri, Who Made This? Reframing Creativity, Authorship and Assessment in the Age of Generative AI
10:35 – 10:50 Presentation 3 – Edward Crump, Fear and Loathing: Encouraging productive uses of AI in Interior Design
10:50 – 11:05 Presentation 4 – Klaire Elton, “We Don’t Need AI, We Have Each Other”: Student Resistance, Agency and Speculative AI Futures in Creative Education
11:05 – 11:30 Discussion and wrap up
Presentation Overviews
Creative AI in practice: what educators need from industry
Tina Saul, Kintal
AI is changing creative work, but access to tools alone doesn’t mean people know how to use them well. Drawing on my experience across creative production and practical AI adoption, I’ll explore what this means for creative education: the skills, judgement and confidence people need, and how educators can help students prepare for changing ways of working. I’ll also share practical examples and resources to support educators’ own learning, with time for questions.
Who Made This? Reframing Creativity, Authorship and Assessment in the Age of Generative AI
Indrani Lahiri, De Montfort University
Generative AI is rapidly becoming part of the student learning experience, presenting both opportunities and challenges. This presentation explores how we might move beyond a narrow focus on AI detection or prohibition and rethink assessment. Drawing on my work around AI ethics, authentic assessment, graduate attributes, and employability, I will consider practical approaches that help to make students’ creative contribution more visible while also supporting responsible use of generative AI.
Fear and Loathing: Encouraging productive uses of AI in Interior Design
Edward Crump, Kingston University
In an effort to pre-empt the rise of AI use among design students, I have developed workflows teaching students strategies for how they might utilise AI in the design process and see these applications as tools to test and further their ideas, as opposed to replacing thinking, direction and output. This presentation considers how these innovative applications could be more fully explored to benefit students' skills, increase their employability longer term, and inform school-wide research practice.
“We Don’t Need AI, We Have Each Other”: Student Resistance, Agency and Speculative AI Futures in Creative Education
Klaire Elton, Nottingham Trent University
This presentation explores how students respond when generative AI is introduced as something they are invited to question, resist and critically engage with. The presentation focuses on MuseBots – purpose-designed AI ‘critical friends’ for creative learning – alongside student resistance to generative AI and Speculative AI Futures activities. The presentation argues that critical AI literacy in creative education may be better supported through agency and negotiation than through tool adoption alone.
If you have any questions about this event, please contact info@chead.ac.uk