The Academy has set its position on AI for the 2027 ceremony: a digital entity - an AI "actor" such as Tilly Norwood - will not be eligible, and a screenplay must be written by humans to qualify for nomination. AI tools can still be used in the production process. What is ruled out is AI standing in as the primary creative author or performer.
What the rule actually targets
The distinction is tool versus author. The eligibility line is not about whether a texture was AI-assisted or a background was filled in by a model; it is about whether a human wrote the script and whether a human gave the performance. The Academy also reserves the right to request documentation verifying human authorship - which is where the difficulty really sits.
Why it matters beyond the trophy
Awards bodies set soft standards that the rest of the pipeline reads. An eligibility rule quietly shapes what financiers, insurers and contracts treat as normal, long before any statute does. By drawing the line at author and performer, the Academy is protecting exactly the places where consent and labour live - the same ground the synthetic-performer and likeness fights have been circling for two years.
The open question is enforcement. In a workflow where AI tools are already everywhere, "written by humans" is easy to declare and hard to prove. The rule does not legislate the tool; it defends the category of human authorship. Whether that holds depends entirely on how seriously the verification is taken.
Sources: BusinessDaily, and reporting on the Academy's 2027 rules.