58% of Photographers Have Misplaced Work to Generative AI: Survey

An Association of Photographers survey of its members has revealed an alarming statistic: 58% say they’ve misplaced work to generative AI.

The U.Ok.-based skilled physique for photographers released its survey outcomes this week, wherein it quizzed members on generative AI and the way it’s affecting them.

Of an estimated 3,000 members, 20% (600) responded to the survey. While the respondents reported a ten% year-on-year rise in earnings, there was an alarming downward pattern in commissions and printed pictures.

There was a 46% lower in publicly seen pictures on-line through the members’ web sites, which the AOP says is “most likely concern over the illegal scraping of their work.”

Meanwhile, there was a good greater decline within the variety of commissioned pictures being licensed by AOP members: a 65% discount.

Almost two-thirds of AOP members say they misplaced that commissioned work to generative AI providers when in comparison with the 2025 survey outcomes. That’s a complete lack of £1,012 million ($1.4M), or £34,900 ($48,000) per particular person.

One AOP member says that whereas it’s arduous to quantify totally, “my business turnover is down over 60% from last year.”

A convincing 98.4% say they need compensation for previous infringements by AI corporations. While each single member say they need transparency when tech corporations practice AI fashions with their pictures. When it involves AI coaching, 85.3% desires the default place to be that rightsholders select to ‘Opt-In’ for AI coaching functions moderately than should ‘Opt-Out’.

In a certain signal of the unhealthy feeling between creators and the AI business, 89.9% say they’re not occupied with licensing their pictures as information for machine studying. While 96.1% consider there ought to be a compulsory labeling requirement for AI-generated works.

The survey comes because the AOP group up with 4 different U.Ok.-based artistic organizations to supply a report known as Brave New World? Justice for Creators in the Age of Generative AI.

Digital Camera World reports that the 5 organizations met in London this week to foyer the British parliament into motion. The AOP, together with the Society of Musicians, the Society of Authors, Equity, and the Association of Illustrators, calls generative AI “the greatest act of theft in modern history”.

“The destruction we’re witnessing is digital — silent, invisible and global,” the AOP says in a press launch. “Shrinking incomes, a marketplace shifting under pressure, widespread theft of intellectual property, the transfer of that IP value to overseas monopolies, and digital replication that puts style and identity itself at stake.”

Image credit: Header photograph licensed through Depositphotos.