Artificial Intelligence in Museums: Infrastructure, Use Cases, and Why Cultural Institutions Must Act Now

Artificial intelligence is becoming core infrastructure for how knowledge is accessed and understood. Museums must understand and adopt AI not as a replacement for curators, educators, or designers, but as a tool that strengthens collection management, interpretation, research, sustainability, and public access. This article explains what AI is, why it matters for museums, and how it can support their mission without replacing institutional expertise.

The greatest risk artificial intelligence poses to museums is not misuse. It is absence.

AI is rapidly becoming the interface through which people access knowledge, ask questions, and explore ideas. Increasingly, the first point of contact between a person and a subject is not a book, a teacher, or an institution. It is an intelligent system. This shift is not temporary. It is infrastructural.

Museums are the stewards of humanity’s cultural and intellectual record. If they are not present in this new layer of knowledge access, their collections do not disappear—but their visibility, accessibility, and influence gradually diminish. Not because their relevance has declined, but because the interface through which knowledge is discovered has changed.

This is not a technological issue. It is a stewardship issue.

Museums Have Always Adopted Technology Carefully

Museums have never been early adopters of new technologies, and for good reason. Their mission is not to experiment with novelty, but to preserve, interpret, and transmit cultural knowledge with integrity.

The web was widely adopted by commercial and academic sectors before it became central to museum operations. Social media followed a similar trajectory, becoming an institutional priority years after it reshaped communication elsewhere. This caution was not a failure. It was a reflection of institutional responsibility. Museums must protect authenticity, intellectual authority, and public trust. Their credibility depends on it.

Museum professionals are trained as curators, conservators, educators, registrars, and researchers. Their expertise lies in the preservation and interpretation of human culture, not in tracking emerging computational systems. New technologies often arrive without clear standards, established practices, or internal expertise to evaluate them.

Caution has protected museums for centuries. But caution must now evolve into informed understanding.

AI Is Not a Tool. It Is a Layer of Infrastructure

Artificial intelligence is often presented as a product or an application. In reality, it is becoming a foundational layer that helps organize, connect, and make knowledge accessible.

Museums already rely on infrastructure layers that were once new: collection databases, digital imaging systems, search interfaces, and web platforms. These systems did not replace curators or educators. They extended their reach and improved institutional capacity.

AI operates in a similar way. It processes and connects existing knowledge. It does not originate cultural authority or scholarly interpretation. It operates on the intellectual work that museum professionals have developed over decades.

Understanding AI as infrastructure, rather than novelty, changes the question. The issue is not whether museums should use AI. The issue is whether museums will help shape how cultural knowledge is represented and accessed in this new environment.

AI Does Not Replace Museum Expertise

There is understandable concern that AI may displace specialized professional roles. In reality, museum work depends on forms of expertise that cannot be automated.

AI does not replace curators, conservators, exhibition writers, exhibition designers, media storytellers, educators, tour guides, registrars, or researchers. These roles involve judgment, interpretation, ethical responsibility, and cultural understanding. Museums are not simply containers of information. They are institutions of intellectual authority.

What AI can do is reduce friction. It can help organize knowledge, accelerate processes, and make existing expertise more accessible. It supports the work of museum professionals. It does not replace it.

The most meaningful applications of AI in museums are not visible as standalone products. They operate as infrastructure, strengthening the institution’s ability to fulfill its mission.

Strengthening Collection Infrastructure

Museums hold vast collections, often with layers of documentation accumulated over decades. Much of this knowledge exists across databases, archives, and internal systems that can be difficult to navigate.

AI can help structure and connect this information, improving metadata consistency, linking related objects, and making institutional knowledge more accessible internally. This does not replace collection managers or registrars. It supports their work by making collections easier to steward, research, and interpret.

The result is not automation of expertise, but amplification of institutional capacity.

Strengthening Institutional Knowledge and Research

Museum knowledge extends far beyond objects. It exists in exhibition files, research documents, publications, conservation records, and internal archives. Accessing this information often requires significant time and familiarity with institutional history.

AI can help make this knowledge searchable and accessible across departments, allowing curators, educators, and researchers to retrieve relevant information more efficiently. This accelerates exhibition development, research preparation, and internal collaboration.

It strengthens the intellectual infrastructure that museums rely on every day.

Strengthening Interpretation and Public Accessibility

Museums invest enormous intellectual effort in interpreting their collections. Yet much of this interpretation remains constrained by physical formats such as wall labels and linear audio guides.

AI enables interpretive systems that connect visitors more deeply with institutional knowledge. It can expand access across languages, allow exploration based on individual curiosity, and extend curatorial interpretation beyond static formats.

Platforms such as WonderWay were created specifically to support this mission by extending curatorial knowledge into new interpretive interfaces, allowing museums to amplify their voice without replacing their authority.

This is not a replacement of interpretation. It is an expansion of its reach.

Strengthening Institutional Sustainability

Museums operate in an environment of limited resources and growing demands. Administrative tasks such as grant writing, reporting, and documentation require substantial staff time.

AI can assist in structuring proposals, organizing institutional information, and accelerating documentation processes. This allows museum professionals to focus on strategic, intellectual, and creative work rather than repetitive administrative tasks.

The goal is not efficiency for its own sake. It is sustainability.

Strengthening Institutional Understanding of Visitors

Understanding how visitors engage with collections is essential for fulfilling the museum’s public mission. AI can help analyze feedback, identify patterns in engagement, and provide insights that support informed decision making.

This allows museums to respond more effectively to their audiences while preserving their intellectual integrity.

It strengthens the museum’s ability to serve the public.

Museums Must Help Shape This Transition

Museums exist to preserve and transmit humanity’s cultural knowledge across generations. AI is becoming one of the primary interfaces through which knowledge is accessed. If museums do not participate in shaping this interface, their knowledge risks becoming less accessible—not because it lacks value, but because it lacks presence.

Museums have navigated technological transitions before. They have preserved manuscripts through the printing press, physical collections through the digital revolution, and scholarly authority through the rise of the internet.

AI is the next transition.

The responsibility of museums is not to resist infrastructure, but to guide its use in service of their mission.

Artificial intelligence does not replace the museum. It gives the museum new tools to remain what it has always been: a steward of human knowledge, accessible to the present and preserved for the future.

Author: Hélène Alonso
Hélène Alonso is a museum technology leader, professor at NYU, and founder of WonderWay, a voice-first AI platform for cultural institutions. She has held leadership roles at major cultural and scientific institutions including the American Museum of Natural History, Liberty Science Center, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Her work focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, interpretation, and the future of cultural institutions.

Key Concepts Covered in This Article

• Artificial intelligence in museums

• AI infrastructure for cultural institutions

• Museum collection management and AI

• AI for museum interpretation

• AI for museum education and accessibility

• AI for museum grant writing and sustainability

• Future of museums and artificial intelligence

• Role of AI in cultural heritage institutions

Frequently Asked Questions

What is artificial intelligence in museums?
Artificial intelligence in museums refers to computational systems that help organize, access, interpret, and distribute institutional knowledge, supporting collection management, interpretation, education, and operations.

Does AI replace curators or museum professionals?
No. AI supports museum professionals by reducing administrative and informational friction. It does not replace curatorial judgment, exhibition writing, education, or institutional authority.

How can AI help museums?
AI can strengthen collection documentation, improve internal research access, expand interpretive accessibility, support grant writing, and help institutions better understand visitor engagement.

Why must museums adopt AI now?
AI is becoming a primary interface for accessing knowledge. Museums must participate in shaping how their collections and expertise are represented in this new infrastructure.