The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has drawn a clear line in the sand ahead of the 99th Oscars in March 2027: artificial intelligence will not be eligible for acting or writing awards. The new rules, announced on Friday, stipulate that only roles “demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” can compete in the acting categories, and that screenplays must be “human-authored” to qualify. This represents the industry’s most explicit response yet to the rapid incursion of generative AI into filmmaking, a technology that has both excited and alarmed Hollywood since the strikes of 2023.

The decision was catalysed by practical provocations. Only days before the Academy’s announcement, an AI-generated version of the late Val Kilmer was screened for cinema owners in a forthcoming independent film, a move that unsettled many in the industry. Viewed from Los Angeles, the ruling is less a blanket ban on AI tools—the Academy has stressed that voters will assess the degree of human creativity on a case-by-case basis—than an assertion of principle: the Oscars will remain a celebration of human craft. Analysts in London note that this mirrors similar debates in European cinema, where questions of authorship and labour rights have long been central. In Paris, Le Figaro framed the move as a defence of the intangible value of human performance, while in Beirut, An-Nahar emphasised the exclusion of “synthetic actors” as a guardrail against digital resurrection without consent.

Beyond AI, the Academy has also revamped the rules for international feature films, a category that has grown increasingly competitive. Under the new framework, a country may now submit multiple films for consideration, provided they have premiered at designated festivals. This change, welcomed in Berlin and Tokyo, addresses a long-standing complaint from smaller film industries that their sole annual submission often fails to capture the breadth of national output. Meanwhile, the acting categories have been liberalised to allow multiple nominations for the same performer in a single field, a reform that could shake up the traditional campaigning dynamic—though viewed from Moscow, where the Russian film industry remains largely absent from the Oscars due to geopolitical tensions, such adjustments seem remote from local realities.

Looking ahead, these rule changes signal that the Academy is attempting to navigate a period of profound technological and cultural flux without sacrificing its core identity. The AI guidelines, in particular, will need constant recalibration as deepfakes and generative models become indistinguishable from human work. The question, as one industry observer in Mumbai put it, is whether the Oscars can remain the ultimate arbiter of cinematic excellence when the definition of “filmmaker” itself is being rewritten. For now, the Academy has planted its flag firmly in favour of human primacy—but the next round of innovation is already being storyboarded.