AI in Sound Design: Pioneering Voices and the Ethics Debate
Three names carrying technology and emotion at once, and the real debates behind why the industry is treating generative AI with caution.
As AI tools enter sound design, the industry's response isn't moving along a single line. On one side are award-winning names weaving the technology into their craft; on the other, professional bodies and award boards are trying to draw the line on generative AI. Both are true at the same time.
Names Blending Technology With Emotion
Polish, London-based composer Marcin Mazurek scored 'Rock, Paper, Scissors', winner of Best British Short Film at the 2025 BAFTAs, and shared a Royal Television Society Award for the same project with sound designer Bryony Lear; he also took third prize at Cannes' La Cinef with 'Bunnyhood'. He's known for creatively processing live-recorded textures into distinctive, story-driven soundscapes.
Iranian-British supervising sound editor and re-recording mixer Ensieh Maleki has worked on more than 60 feature fiction and documentary films since 2012, with her work screened at major festivals including Cannes, Venice, Berlin, BAFTA, Sundance, and IDFA. Having worked with directors such as Abbas Kiarostami and Majid Majidi, Maleki is one of a small number of sound professionals to receive the UK's 'Exceptional Talent' endorsement.
Singapore's Jennifer Heng represents the field's younger edge: studying directing and sound design at Nanyang Technological University, Heng won Best Sound Design in the Student Category at the 2026 Singapore Youth Film Festival — an early signal of how the next generation is approaching technology and emotion together.
MPSE Golden Reel: 'Generative AI Not Accepted'
At the end of 2025, the Motion Picture Sound Editors association announced it was excluding sound produced using generative AI from Golden Reel Award consideration. The reasoning wasn't technical — it was legal and ethical: there's still no clear standard for the copyright status of such sound, or for measuring the human contribution in its production. The decision shows the industry keeps using AI tools in daily workflow, while not yet being ready to reward them as 'craft'.
The Intellectual Property Question Remains Open
Who owns a sound effect generated by an AI model? The company that trained the model, the owners of the original sound libraries used as training data, or the user who wrote the prompt? This question still hasn't been given a clear legal answer in the film and games industry. Professional bodies' codes of conduct (AMPS, for instance) currently lean on general principles of professional integrity and staying aware of technological developments — a binding, industry-wide, AI-specific ownership standard has yet to take shape.