Every technology cycle puts the same decision in front of museums: What to explore, what to reject, and where to draw the line. With AI, some institutions treat it as a subject to exhibit and examine. Others use it to change how collections are catalogued, searched, and reached.

Museums are also an unusually strong use case. They hold collections and archives that have been catalogued, tagged, and provenanced over centuries, which is the kind of material current AI systems learn from. In recent years, museums have worked to open these collections to the public. That openness now means the data can be scraped, synthesized, and reorganized by others, which puts pressure on curatorial authority: Who interprets a collection once anyone can rework it?

Three questions follow. What is the value of a machine-readable archive, and for whom? If everything is available digitally, does the in-person encounter with an object and the physical visit become more valuable or less? And what role do contemporary artists play in examining these systems critically?

The panel asks each speaker where their own practice and institution have drawn the line, and what they have decided not to automate. The conversation moves across three levels of adoption: personal use, professional practice, and organizational stance. It closes by shifting from forecasting to design: how should this future be shaped, which values and priorities should guide it, and which of today’s claims are hype and which will last?

This is part of a series of roundtables Swissnex in San Francisco is hosting with Bay Area museum professionals ahead of the Future Museum Lab, which brings six museum professionals from Switzerland to San Francisco in October 2026.

*This event is designed for a curated group of participants interested in the topic, and space is limited. Please indicate your interest in your registration and reach out to Lucas Hagin or Elodie Malonga for any questions.