On current trends the creative economy grows from about 3.4% of world GDP (UNESCO 2025) toward 4% by 2030, with entertainment and media revenue rising from $2.9 trillion in 2024 to $3.5 trillion in 2029 at 3.7% a year (PwC), creative services exports compounding at 5–6% from their 2022 base of $1.4 trillion, and India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and China growing at 6–8% while Western Europe grows at 1–3%. The main uncertainty is generative AI: a CISAC-commissioned study projects $28 billion of cumulative revenue losses for music and audiovisual creators by 2028, while the World Economic Forum expects creative thinking to rise in demand through 2030. The Kurums base case is 5% nominal annual growth to 2030, with a bull case near 7% and a bear case near 3%.
The creative economy’s outlook to 2030 depends on three variables that can be estimated with some confidence (demand growth, regional rebalancing and public investment) and one that cannot (how far generative AI substitutes for paid human creative work). In this article the Kurums Startup team sets out the published forecasts from PwC, UNCTAD, UNESCO, CISAC, the World Economic Forum and national governments, builds three scenarios from them, and lists the risks that would move the sector from one scenario to another. It closes our Arts & Creative Economy hub‘s numbers pillar, which opens with how big the global creative economy is; readers interested in the investment angle should also see art-tech startups.
How large will the creative economy be in 2030?
Roughly $4–4.5 trillion of direct output on UNESCO’s 3.39%-of-GDP basis, assuming world GDP near $125 trillion and a creative share rising toward 3.6–3.8%. PwC’s narrower entertainment and media perimeter reaches $3.5 trillion in 2029; adding architecture, design, crafts and software not counted by PwC takes the broad figure above $4 trillion.
Where will growth come from?
Advertising (6.1% a year to 2029, PwC), games ($224 billion to nearly $300 billion), streaming ($169 billion to $230 billion), creative services exports (up 29% in 2017–22) and the emerging markets: India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia above 7.5% a year, China 6.1%, against 3.8% in the US and 1–2% in Austria, Finland and Switzerland.
What is the biggest risk?
Generative AI displacing paid creative work faster than new demand appears. The CISAC study projects music creators losing 24% of revenue and audiovisual creators 21% by 2028, $28 billion cumulatively; UNESCO found 38% of cultural workers already report AI-linked income declines. Against that, the generative AI market itself grows from $4 billion to $81 billion by 2028, creating new buyers of creative input.
What is the starting point for a 2030 forecast?
The 2025–2026 baseline is a creative economy at 3.39% of world GDP and 3.55% of employment (UNESCO Global Report on Cultural Policies, September 2025), creative trade of $2.1 trillion ($1.4 trillion services, $713 billion goods, UNCTAD 2022 data) and entertainment and media revenue of $2.9 trillion in 2024 (PwC), growing faster than the world economy in every major market.
The national series confirm the momentum: US arts and cultural production grew 6.6% in real terms in 2023 against 2.9% for GDP (BEA); UK creative GVA rose 4.6% in 2024 against 1.0% (DCMS); China’s culture industries grew 8.8% in 2025, with digital “new-format” industries up 15.1% (NBS); EU cultural employment rose 1.3% to 8.9 million (Eurostat); Korean content exports reached a provisional $14.9 billion in 2025.
The Creative Futures report from FTI Consulting and the World Governments Summit (February 2026) frames the policy response: governments now treat creative industries as a diversification strategy, with four levers (cross-ministry governance, blended finance, creativity in education, exports and soft power) and a claimed multiplier of about $2.50 of output per $1 invested.
What do the published forecasts say?
The only global, dated forecast is PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2025–2029 (July 2025): revenue of $3.5 trillion in 2029, a 3.7% compound annual growth rate from $2.9 trillion in 2024, adding $577 billion. Within that, advertising grows at 6.1%, consumer spending at 2.0% and connectivity at 2.8%.
PwC’s segment forecasts give the shape of the decade. Video games rise from $223.8 billion in 2024 to nearly $300 billion in 2029 (5.7% a year); streaming grows from $169 billion to $230 billion and overtakes traditional pay TV in 2027; box office recovers from $33 billion to $41.5 billion; digital formats rise from 72% to 80.4% of advertising and connected TV advertising reaches $51 billion. Non-digital formats (live music, events, cinema) were still 60.8% of consumer spending in 2024 and remain the majority in 2029.
Regionally, PwC expects China’s entertainment and media to grow 6.1% a year with internet advertising at 8.9%; India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia above 7.5%, with Indian internet advertising at 15.9%; the United States at 3.8%; and Austria, Finland and Switzerland at 1–2%. That pattern, emerging markets at twice the developed-market rate, is consistent with UNCTAD’s finding that developing economies doubled their share of creative services exports from 10% to 20% between 2010 and 2022.
How will generative AI change creative output and jobs by 2030?
AI will expand the volume of creative output, compress prices in commoditised segments (stock imagery, library music, translation, routine design) and shift value toward rights holders, platforms and the creators who direct AI tools. The best quantified estimate is a CISAC-commissioned study projecting $28 billion of cumulative revenue loss for music and audiovisual creators by 2028.
That study, by PMP Strategy for CISAC, forecasts the generative AI market growing from under $4 billion to $81 billion by 2028, with generative AI services in music and audiovisual rising from $381 million to over $11 billion a year. Against that, it expects AI to take nearly a quarter of music industry revenue by 2028 (including 20% of streaming revenue and 60% of music library revenue) and over 20% of audiovisual revenue, with translators and subtitlers facing 56% of their revenue at risk and screenwriters and directors 15–20%. Cumulative creator losses are put at $12.7 billion in music and $15 billion in audiovisual over five years.
The employment picture is mixed. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 expects 170 million jobs created and 92 million displaced worldwide by 2030, a net gain of 78 million, with 39% of current skills transformed, and expects creative thinking to keep rising in importance. Earlier shifts (desktop publishing, digital photography, streaming) produced fewer paid hours per unit of output and more output; the net effect on creative employment was positive at sector level and painful for the displaced tiers.
The distributional effects matter more than the headline. The freelance tier examined in our creative employment statistics article (31.6% of EU cultural workers, 49% of the UK cultural sector) absorbs losses first because it has no employer to redeploy it. Copyright and licensing frameworks, from the EU AI Act’s transparency rules to collective licensing deals by CISAC members and the major labels, will decide how much of the $81 billion AI market flows back to rights holders.
Which regions and segments will gain share by 2030?
Asia and the Gulf gain share, Western Europe loses it, and within segments games, streaming, advertising and exportable creative services gain while print, physical media and domestically consumed formats lose. The United States holds its position as the largest single market while growing below the global average.
The arithmetic follows from the growth rates: with India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia above 7.5%, China at 6.1% and Western Europe at 1–3%, Asia-Pacific’s share of entertainment and media revenue rises several points by 2030 at Europe’s expense. Asia already supplies 61% of creative goods exports and 26% of creative services (UNCTAD, 2022); the services share is the one to watch. Korea’s 400 trillion won K-culture target and Saudi Arabia’s SR180 billion ($48 billion) cultural GDP goal, both for 2030, are the most explicit national bets.
Europe’s position is defended by its services exports ($720 billion, 52% of the world total in 2022), its royalty infrastructure (€7.09 billion collected in Western Europe in 2024 against €1.92 billion in Asia-Pacific, CISAC) and its public funding. The UK’s June 2025 Sector Plan aims to make the country the leading destination for creative investment by 2035; the question is whether 1–3% growth in the EU core can hold share against markets growing at 6–8%. Our creative economy by region article gives the baseline.
| Scenario | Nominal growth to 2030 | Creative share of world GDP, 2030 | Key assumptions | Indicators to watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bull | ~7% a year | ~4.0% | AI licensing deals return a large share of the $81bn AI market to rights holders; emerging markets sustain 7%+; Gulf and Korean targets met; advertising grows 6%+ | CISAC digital collections above €6bn by 2027; Saudi cultural GDP above 2% by 2028; Korean exports above $18bn |
| Base | ~5% a year | ~3.6–3.7% | PwC 3.7% for E&M plus 5–6% for creative services trade; AI losses near the CISAC $28bn estimate, offset by new demand; Europe grows 2%, Asia 6% | UNCTAD creative services exports above $1.8tn by 2026 data; EU cultural employment above 9.2m by 2027 |
| Bear | ~3% a year | ~3.3% (flat) | AI substitution exceeds CISAC estimates and spreads to design and advertising; advertising recession; public culture budgets cut in Europe; emerging-market growth stalls | UNESCO AI-income-decline share above 50%; EU cultural employment falls two years running; PwC revises E&M CAGR below 3% |
What are the three Kurums scenarios for 2030?
A base case of about 5% nominal annual growth, lifting the creative economy from roughly 3.4% to 3.6–3.7% of world GDP by 2030; a bull case near 7% where AI licensing and emerging markets deliver, reaching about 4%; and a bear case near 3% where AI substitution and an advertising downturn hold the share flat.
The base case combines the published rates: PwC’s 3.7% for the monetised entertainment and media core, 5.2% a year for creative services trade (its 2017–2022 pace) and 6–8% for the policy-driven markets. Weighted by size, that gives a sector growing about 1.5 points faster than nominal world GDP, consistent with the 2010–2024 UK record (creative GVA up 60.3% against 24.3%). AI losses in the base case match the CISAC estimate of $28 billion by 2028, under 1% of cumulative sector revenue and offset by new demand for creative input to AI products.
The bull case requires collective licensing to return a meaningful share of the $81 billion generative AI market to rights holders and the emerging-market build-outs to hit their targets. The bear case requires AI substitution spreading from library music and translation into design, advertising and mid-budget screen work, combined with an advertising downturn and European austerity in culture budgets.
In Türkiye the base case implies cultural employment (957,000 in 2024, growing 6.5% a year per TÜİK) passing 1.3 million by 2030 and television series exports (above $500 million in 2024) approaching $1 billion; the bear case is a cost squeeze on production and AI dubbing eroding the export premium. See the Türkiye creative economy playbook.
What risks could derail the creative economy before 2030?
Beyond AI, the main risks are an advertising cycle (advertising is now the largest and fastest-growing revenue line), platform concentration squeezing creator margins, public-funding retrenchment in Europe, trade and content restrictions, and the measurement problem that makes the sector hard to finance at its true scale.
Advertising dependence is new. With advertising forecast to exceed consumer spending by $300 billion in 2029 and growing at 6.1% against 2.0%, the creative economy is more exposed to the advertising cycle than at any time since broadcast television’s peak, and the fastest-growing ad segments (retail media, connected TV, 14–15% a year) are controlled by a few platforms. UNCTAD notes three companies held 59% of music streaming subscriptions in 2021 and six studios take nearly 90% of box office. Concentration means growth accrues to platforms before creators. Live experiences are the counterweight: the Las Vegas Sphere grossed $367 million from 70 shows in 2024, and our live music industry article expects that segment to keep growing.
Public funding is the European risk. Culture spending of $418.56 per head in Europe and North America (UNESCO) is roughly 13 times the rest of the world, and Cebr’s £3.12 of direct GVA per £1 of Arts Council England funding makes the economic case, but fiscal pressure puts those budgets in play. A 10% cut in European culture budgets would remove more direct GVA than the bear-case AI losses. Trade policy is the Asian risk: China’s market remains largely closed to foreign content and tariff escalation since 2025 has touched creative goods. The Venture Capital hub covers how investors price these risks.
How should a business plan for the 2030 creative economy?
Position on the lines that grow regardless of scenario (exportable creative services, games, streaming-era rights, live experiences), hold optionality on AI by owning rights and data rather than only labour, and diversify geographically toward the 6–8% markets while keeping a foothold where royalties and subsidies are paid.
For a creative business, the base case rewards rights ownership (value flows to whoever holds licensable intellectual property, which is why CISAC collections hit a record €13.97 billion in 2024), export readiness (creative services trade grows faster than domestic consumption everywhere) and AI fluency as a production tool: the $11 billion of generative AI services revenue in music and audiovisual by 2028 is revenue someone will earn.
For investors and policymakers, the two numbers to track each year are UNCTAD’s creative services exports (base case: above $1.8 trillion by the 2026 data year) and CISAC’s digital collections (base case: above €6 billion by 2027). If either stalls for two consecutive years, revisit the plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there an official forecast of the creative economy’s size in 2030?
No single official forecast exists. PwC forecasts entertainment and media revenue of $3.5 trillion in 2029; UNESCO and UNCTAD publish baselines rather than projections; and national targets (Saudi Arabia 3% of GDP, Korea 400 trillion won) are aspirations. The Kurums scenarios combine those sources with observed 2010–2025 growth rates; they are estimates, and the base case of about 5% a year should be treated as a central tendency, not a prediction.
Will AI reduce the number of creative jobs by 2030?
Probably not the number, but likely the income of specific groups. The CISAC-commissioned study projects revenue losses of 24% in music and 21% in audiovisual by 2028, concentrated among translators, library-music composers and screenwriters, while the World Economic Forum expects creative thinking to rise in demand and net global employment to grow by 78 million by 2030. Expect more creative output, fewer paid hours per unit, and a widening gap between rights-owning and labour-only creatives.
Which creative segment will grow fastest to 2030?
Internet advertising, including ad-supported streaming, retail media and connected TV, at 14–15% a year in PwC’s forecast, followed by video games at 5.7% and streaming video at roughly 6%. Among regions, India’s internet advertising at 15.9% a year is the single fastest line in PwC’s outlook. Physical PC games and print magazine advertising decline fastest.
How big could Türkiye’s creative economy be in 2030?
On the base case, cultural employment grows from 957,000 (2024) toward 1.3 million, culture expenditure keeps pace with nominal GDP at roughly 1% of output, and television series exports move from above $500 million toward $1 billion. The upside depends on games and design exports, where Istanbul has a growing cluster; the downside is production-cost inflation and AI dubbing eroding the dubbed-drama export model.
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