At a packed conference of industry professionals in the Furniture Industry, organised by the British Furniture Association (BFA) last week at the Coventry Building Society Arena, ACID’s Chair, Dids Macdonald OBE, using an iceberg as an analogy said about artificial intelligence, “What we know is minimal and exciting, but what we don’t know is daunting and poses enormous risk.”

She continued to share that, “Artificial intelligence represents one of the biggest opportunities facing the furniture industry. From design ideation and visualisation to marketing, product descriptions, customer service, forecasting and procurement, AI is already transforming how businesses create, operate, and compete. Yet alongside the opportunity come important questions: Who owns the output? What data is being used? How is confidential information protected? And where does legal and commercial risk sit?

The challenge is no longer whether businesses will adopt AI, but whether they will do so with the knowledge, controls and safeguards needed to use it responsibly.

Intellectual property is central to this debate. Businesses should not assume that AI-generated designs or images automatically attract the same ownership or protection as work created through human skill and creativity. The level of human input, the evidence of the creative process and the provenance of a design may all become increasingly important. At the same time, businesses must take steps to protect their existing assets, including designs, product photography, CAD files, catalogues, websites, and design archives, from unauthorised copying, data mining, and misuse.

Confidential information and trade secrets present an equally immediate risk. Employees may inadvertently enter commercially sensitive information, such as customer data, pricing, product specifications, unreleased designs, or trade secrets, into public or unapproved AI systems. Once that information leaves the business, control over how and where it is processed may be significantly reduced.

A clear, bespoke workplace AI policy is therefore essential. Businesses should decide which tools are approved, define what information must never be entered into AI systems, establish procedures for checking outputs and make clear that accountability remains with a human decision-maker. AI can produce highly convincing but inaccurate information, particularly in areas involving product specifications, technical advice, marketing claims, and commercial documents. AI can assist, but someone in the business must remain responsible for the final answer.

Looking ahead, issues around transparency, AI labelling, data mining, and creators’ rights will become increasingly significant. There is growing pressure for greater openness about how AI is trained and when content has been generated or materially altered by AI. For an industry built on creativity and innovation, getting the balance right between technological progress and the protection of creators’ rights will be crucial.

The businesses best placed to benefit from AI will be those that combine experimentation with sensible controls. The key questions are simple: What AI are we using? What data are we giving it? Who owns the output? What are we checking? What are we telling customers and employees?

The best advice is to be positive, but discerning. Human ingenuity and creativity remain irreplaceable. Used responsibly, with the right guardrails in place, AI can and should be transformative.”

ACID continues to campaign with content creators across industry who support the Make it FAIR campaign to demand transparency, accountability, attribution, labelling and recompense from Generative AI.