Understanding the Landscape: opportunities & challenges

As digital transformation accelerates, cultural organisations find themselves navigating a rapidly evolving technological landscape. This session explored how emerging tools—ranging from artificial intelligence and automation to data analytics and extended reality—are reshaping not only operational practices but also artistic creation, audience engagement, and heritage preservation. Examples from museums, performing arts organisations, archives, and festivals illustrated how AI is already being integrated into curation, programming, collection management, and visitor experiences.

The discussion also examined the broader opportunities and challenges these technologies present for the sector: new creative possibilities, enhanced efficiency, and expanded access, alongside questions of ethics, skills gaps, sustainability, and organisational readiness. Participants were invited to reflect collectively on how these trends intersect with their own institutional contexts, helping to frame a clearer understanding of the digital transformation ahead.