Contxt in Observer: Building a Chatbot for the Art World

"People in exhibitions often have questions about what they're seeing but don't have access to curatorial insight or background knowledge in real time," Lukas told Observer. "With Contxt, visitors can ask questions about an artwork and get answers sourced directly from the institution's knowledge base rather than generic internet results."

The conversation walks through the three layers we build for every partner. The first is the knowledge base itself, where curator interviews, artwork images, exhibition guides, essays and multimedia all become a corpus a visitor can actually talk to. The second is voice and audience tailoring, so the same archive can address a museum visitor, a corporate collector or a fair attendee in the right register. The third is analytics, surfacing which works are asked about most, which questions visitors keep returning to, and which ideas are quietly resonating across an exhibition.

Christa also asked what's next for artists. We want to give artists and curators the ability to take control of the narrative directly. Artists building their own knowledge bases — mood boards for their practice, statements, inspirations and ideas — that curators can connect into an exhibition's context. The goal isn't to replace anyone's voice, but to make sure the right voices are present whenever a visitor wants to go deeper.

On data: the analytics surface patterns, not people. Question types, themes and engagement are anonymized so curators learn what's resonating, without tracking individual visitors.

The piece closes on what's next. We're rolling out pilots and preparing for launch. The overall goal stays the same: give exhibitors and visitors the tools to facilitate deeper, more meaningful conversations about art.

Read the full interview by Christa Terry at Observer.