Blender Clarifies AI Policy and Amends Anthropic Donation
Following the recent Anthropic funding announcement, the Blender Foundation amends its donation parameters and outlines how AI fits into its roadmap, while emphasizing human-driven creation and open-source priorities.
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The Blender Foundation has published a new update outlining its approach to AI alongside its Development Fund strategy, offering further clarity after recent discussions surrounding new corporate backers and the role of AI in Blender’s future.
The update follows the announcement that Anthropic joined the Development Fund as a Corporate Patron, a move that sparked both interest and concern across the Blender community. In response, the Foundation is now providing more explicit guidance on how AI-related tools and contributions will be handled going forward.
At the core of the update is a reaffirmation of Blender’s artist-first philosophy. According to the Foundation, AI experimentation is being explored, but within clear boundaries that prioritize human authorship and creative control. Early work, including internal “lab” projects, is focused on evaluating how AI-assisted tools might support workflows rather than replace them.
Importantly, the policy does not position AI as a central pillar of Blender’s development roadmap. Instead, it frames AI as one of many areas of experimentation, alongside ongoing efforts to improve rendering, animation, and asset workflows. This aligns with Blender’s broader development strategy. It's a sentiment that Francesco Siddi, Blender's CEO, emphasized on a livestream earlier this week.
"Blender is a tool for artists and creators, it’s made by humans for humans. No generative AI functionality is currently available or planned to be integrated in Blender."
- Francesco Siddi, Blender CEO, in a blog post
From a funding perspective, the update reiterates that corporate contributions, including those from AI companies, are directed toward core Blender development, not specific feature mandates. This distinction is key to Blender’s governance model, which relies on pooled funding to support full-time developers while maintaining independence in technical decision-making.
But in this case, Blender has gone a step further and amended Anthropic's contributions to a one-time donation. This will forego any future contributions Anthropic may have been planning.
Claude's Blender connector should remain unaffected:
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