The Media Management Commission (MMC) has published the e-book Changing Sceneries, Changing Roles – Part XII: AI and Human Collaboration: Partners in Archiving?. The publication features selected papers from the latest Media Management Seminar, hosted by the BBC at the University of South Wales in Cardiff on May 6-8, 2025.

The seminar brought together more than one hundred broadcast archive leaders, curators, technologists, engineers, content specialists and analysts. Their central message was that AI works best as part of a strong metadata and workflow strategy, not as a standalone project. Good metadata, labelling and governance remain the foundation, and provenance is needed to track the many iterations of content and to ensure proper annotation and attribution.

Human validation was equally central. It protects accuracy, editorial judgment, rights and ethical standards, and it drives preservation strategies. As content, terminology and user needs keep evolving, AI models require continuous monitoring, and that oversight rests with people.

Looking ahead, the Commission will address the question of who owns the newly created AI metadata at the next seminar, planned for May 2027. Details will be released soon.

Video recordings of the sessions are available on the FIAT/IFTA website and on the YouTube channel.

FIAT/IFTA thanks the MMC Commission, the BBC, the participants and the sponsors for making the seminar possible.

If you’d like to revisit the full discussions, you can watch the full session recordings through the FIAT/IFTA YouTube Channel.