Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the necessity of technology and digital transformation in the cultural sector has never been clearer. From enabling data-driven decisions and extending the visitor experience to facilitating smooth operations, a variety of new technologies are powering the future of museums. Per Cuseum tradition, each year, we eagerly anticipate leading global research and advisory firm Gartner’s release of their annual technology trends forecast. This report highlights the developments that the firm expects to “act as force multipliers of digital business and innovation over the next three to five years.”
As museums continue to explore which technologies will propel them forward in the digital era, we are eager to contextualize Gartner’s 2022 predictions for the cultural industry.
Read on to explore what the top technology trends in 2022 could mean for arts and culture.
1. Data Fabric
According to Gartner, data fabric provides “flexible, resilient integration of data sources across platforms and business users, making data available everywhere it’s needed regardless of where the data lives.” With this in mind, data fabric architectures may play a pivotal role in museum education and open access, as well as enabling cultural entities to make data-driven decisions.
When it comes to museum collections, data fabric makes it possible to combine all relevant data points regarding objects and artifacts, rendering this information readily accessible to visitors, researchers, and anyone interested. Some pioneering entities have already begun to rely on data fabric – for example, The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) is a new world-class Research Infrastructure for natural science collections hosted in natural history museums, botanic gardens, universities and other research centers.
Data fabric also confers the benefit of housing member, donor, and visitor data in a centralized system, allowing for more robust analysis in a time when cultural organizations are increasingly striving to become data-driven. For example, at Wichita State University (home of Ulrich Museum of Art), IBM reported that, “Data fabric eliminated data silos across departments, improving data governance, quality and lineage capabilities. Reporting dashboards provide easily accessed insights and trends to university analysts and administration.”
2. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Every year, the bar for what artificial intelligence can achieve is raised even higher. Last year, for example, museums were able to cater to visitors of all backgrounds using AI powered multilingual translations.
Trending in 2022 will be Generative AI. In the words of Gartner, Generative AI encompasses “machine learning methods that learn about content or objects from their data, and use it to generate brand-new, completely original, realistic artifacts.”
In sum, generative AI is the technology used to create new content by utilizing existing text, audio files, images, and videos. With generative AI, computers detect the underlying pattern related to the input and produce similar content.
This technology is already being harnessed by museums to create more immersive digital experiences. For example, Gen Studio, a collaborative initiative of The Met, Microsoft, and MIT, allows users to examine the features and dimensions of given artworks from The Met’s Open Access collection. Specifically, “a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) allows you to explore and visualize the spaces in between those pieces.”
Generative AI can also be used to augment onsite exhibitions. Through July 2022, the Smithsonian Institution FUTURES exhibition will be on display, which “imagines the future of our urban landscape.” The exhibition includes a digital interactive component that asks users to help design a city block. According to Jing Culture and commerce, “While the players work together, a generative AI operates in the background to provide personalized recommendations to improve the structure and sustainability of their designs.”
This suggests Generative AI may hold great promise for immersive experience and exhibition design.
Generative AI has likewise revealed its ability to facilitate art restoration projects, and has been previously deployed to recreate the missing fragments of a damaged Rembrandt, restore ancient murals, and more.
3. Distributed Enterprises
According to Gartner, “Distributed enterprises reflect a digital-first, remote-first business model to improve employee experiences, digitalize consumer and partner touchpoints, and build out product experiences.” Motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this increasingly captures where museums and cultural organizations are headed in 2022 and beyond.
In 2021, we learned that 92% of museums and cultural institutions were offering virtual programming. Moreover, the latest insights by cultural industry market intelligence researcher Colleen Dilenschneider show that there may not be a “going back to normal” in terms of digital engagement for cultural organizations, and “like several other key trends likely to stick around as a result of the pandemic, increased expectations surrounding digital engagement have taken root.”
Museums are increasingly working with diverse, geographically-dispersed partners, serving far-flung audiences through their digital platforms, facilitating remote visits through augmented and immersive realities, and hiring for positions like “digital product manager.” With this in mind, we can anticipate that museums will continue to evolve as distributed entities in the years to come.
4. Cloud-Native Platforms
Cloud-native platforms are technologies that allow you “to build new application architectures that are resilient, elastic and agile — enabling you to respond to rapid digital change.” In 2022 and beyond, museums and cultural institutions are hoping to reap the many benefits that cloud native platforms offer – particularly an efficient and resilient IT foundation.
Gartner predicts that cloud-native platforms will “serve as the foundation for more than 95% of new digital initiatives by 2025,” which means that cloud-native technologies will play an important role in helping museums manage data and digital assets, as well as enhance the visitor experience.
In the years to come, one of the most challenging components of digital transformation in museums may very well be the need to move from relying on legacy architectures to leveraging the containers and microservices that constitute cloud-native technologies. Legacy systems can have many pitfalls, like being inefficient, unstable, and insecure. While such legacy systems may be cloud-enabled, this cannot compare to the benefits of today’s born-in-the-cloud solutions, which are massively scalable and distributed.
Recognizing the need for cloud-native services in the cultural sector, the Computer History Museum is working with Microsoft and cloud-native software platform Terentia to “build a platform that allows museums to manage all aspects of their collections, exhibits and data to enhance and extend the visitor experience more efficiently.”
5. Cyber-Security Mesh
In 2022, cybersecurity is continuing to rise as a chief business and consumer concern, and the public is demanding more protection to ensure the integrity of their personal information.
For this reason, Gartner has named “cyber-security mesh” a top trend for the years ahead. This type of technology “enables best-of-breed, stand-alone security solutions to work together to improve overall security while moving control points closer to the assets they’re designed to protect.”
In just the past few months, ransomware attacks and breaches have been reported at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Art Basel, and Syracuse University. Such attacks have significant repercussions for museums. They can damage trust with visitors, members, and donors; cause unforeseen disruptions to operations; and result in serious financial loss – in fact, the average ransomware attack cost $1.85 million in 2021.
Consequently, cybersecurity mesh may become increasingly necessary for organizations to maintain stable operations, protect data, safeguard financial solvency, and establish confidence with constituents.
→ Read more: 3 Reasons Why Museums & Nonprofits Should Be Thinking About Cybersecurity
6. Decision Intelligence
Decision intelligence is “a practical discipline used to improve decision making by explicitly understanding and engineering how decisions are made, and outcomes evaluated, managed and improved by feedback.”
As cultural leaders and executives strive to make the best possible decisions to help their institutions survive and thrive in unprecedented times, decision intelligence can support this process. Indeed, decision intelligence can use data analytics, artificial intelligence, and simulations to help cultural entities save resources, maximize revenue, and mitigate risk.
7. Total Experience
Gartner defines total-experience as “a business strategy that integrates employee experience, customer experience, user experience, and multi-experience across multiple touchpoints to accelerate growth.” This is a particularly valuable approach to help museums drive employee retention, visitor satisfaction, and member loyalty.
As visitor-facing organizations know, less-than-stellar visitor experiences can lead to customer complaints, while just one enthusiastic encounter with a museum staff member can leave a visitor delighted and referring their friends. In the words of Verizon, “The key to total experience is that these encounters are considered not as individual occurrences but as facets of a singular experience.”
As museums strive to deliver cutting-edge experiences, elevate their brands, and nurture their employees and patrons into vocal evangelists, total experience strategy may very well play a critical role in the years to come.
It has never been more important for museums and cultural organizations to stay on top of the latest technology trends. Motivated by the pandemic, countless cultural organizations have already adopted new initiatives like mobile tours, online ticketing, digital memberships, augmented reality experiences, compelling online programming, e-commerce opportunities, and so much more in order to offer seamless, cutting-edge, and digitally-connected experiences. As cultural organizations continue to adapt to the pressures of the pandemic, rising consumer demands, and operational inefficiencies, exploring and investing in new solutions will remain imperative. These tech trends may sound futuristic today, but by tomorrow, they could very well be household names!
Looking to learn more about how technology solutions can help you drive visitor and member engagement? Schedule a demo with Cuseum.