UK News: Nottingham Trent Becomes First University to Offer Generative AI Degree
Nottingham Trent University has launched what is believed to be the United Kingdom’s first undergraduate degree programme dedicated to Generative AI and Creative Technologies, responding to the rapid transformation of creative, media and technology industries by artificial intelligence tools that can generate text, images, audio, video and software code. The four-year programme, which accepted its first cohort in September 2025, combines technical grounding in the underlying models and their development with creative applications across design, media production, marketing, entertainment and emerging fields that the university expects to develop over the degree’s duration.
The curriculum covers the conceptual foundations of generative AI, including the machine learning principles underlying large language models, diffusion models and other generative architectures. It also addresses the ethical, legal and societal dimensions of generative AI — copyright questions around training data, concerns about deepfakes and disinformation, and the implications for employment in creative industries where AI tools are displacing certain tasks while creating demand for new skills.
Industry partnerships are embedded throughout the programme, with placements arranged with creative agencies, technology companies, game studios, broadcast media organisations and digital marketing businesses. The placement programme reflects a recognition that employers in these sectors are urgently seeking people who can work effectively alongside generative AI tools and who understand both their capabilities and their limitations.
Nottingham Trent’s decision to create the programme reflects its established strength in creative arts and design education alongside its growing technology offering. The university sees the convergence of these previously separate disciplinary traditions as a defining feature of careers in creative technology over the next decade and believes that dedicated programmes preparing students for that convergence are needed alongside the adaptation of existing technology and arts programmes.
