In the digital era, museums and cultural organizations face numerous and critical challenges, including constrained budgets, staff shortages, and heightened competition for the public's leisure time and interest. Consequently, these institutions are seeking cost-effective, streamlined strategies and tools to manage collections, drive engagement, and unlock new revenue streams while meeting public expectations for technological offerings. Almost 80% of museums view emerging technologies as critical success factors in attracting visitors, improving content relevance, and diversifying audiences – so it’s no surprise that cultural organizations are turning to digital solutions in greater numbers than ever.

One avenue that holds particular potential is generative AI - most familiar in the form of  ChatGPT. ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is the latest algorithmic disruptor from  OpenAI - the same Silicon Valley startup responsible for DALL-E, the AI-powered digital art generator. Following its release in November 2022, it broke records by gaining a million users in its first week. By February 2023, it had 100 million monthly active users.

With its ability to process enormous amounts of complex data and generate highly detailed results that sound humanly composed, ChatGPT is disrupting industries ranging from education to journalism to e-commerce, and holds the potential to transform the landscape of museums and cultural institutions, as well.

In this blog post, we will explore nine ways that cultural organizations can leverage ChatGPT for everything from visitor experiences to donor outreach, in order to streamline their operations and enhance acquisition, retention, engagement, and revenue.

Let’s dive in!

1. Content Marketing

In the digital-first era, content has become an essential tool for museums: not only is it  62% more cost-effective than traditional marketing, high-quality and relevant content significantly impacts audience decisions, ultimately enhancing attendance and engagement. Plus,  84% of consumers expect content from brands and organizations! With its robust generative capabilities, ChatGPT can revolutionize content creation for museums by generating pertinent ideas, synthesizing written material into various formats, detecting popular themes, and optimizing online visibility.

Take the hypothetical museum, "Contemporary Art Haven," which specializes in contemporary art exhibitions. They can utilize ChatGPT to create engaging content that aligns with their target audience's preferences. By collecting data through Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Mailchimp, and visitor surveys, they can analyze audience engagement and preferences. Based on the analysis, the museum identifies their audience's inclination towards interactive content, artist interviews, and behind-the-scenes insights.

They can then optimize ChatGPT's content generation parameters to create content around these themes, such as interactive quizzes, blog posts featuring artist interviews, or social media posts sharing captivating behind-the-scenes photos. By continuously monitoring audience feedback and engagement metrics, the museum can refine ChatGPT's output to ensure content remains relevant and engaging. Consequently, the Contemporary Art Haven can effectively utilize ChatGPT to create tailored content that resonates with their target audience, resulting in increased engagement, museum visits, and membership growth.

2. Boosting engagement across all channels

Diversifying communication channels is crucial for effective member engagement. In 2021, over 85% of emails were spam, making it essential to diversify communication channels with members. While email open rates ranged between 28% and 33%, according to data from Hubspot , text messages boasted a 99% open rate, with 97% read within 15 minutes. This trend applies to museums and nonprofits too, as mobile message click-through rates for cultural organizations reached 6.3% for fundraising and 10% for advocacy messages, far outperforming similar email metrics. 

ChatGPT can help museums drive engagement through text message marketing by generating concise, personalized, and relevant content for targeted audiences. The model can craft event reminders, exhibition highlights, membership perks, or exclusive offers tailored to individual preferences. By utilizing ChatGPT's language generation capabilities, museums can create compelling text messages that capture attention, foster interaction, and boost overall engagement with members and visitors.

3. supercharging Translation services

While Google Translate and other software has accelerated translation capabilities, ChatGPT is revolutionizing natural language processing tasks with its ability to generate human-like text in multiple languages. Trained on a large corpus of multilingual data, ChatGPT has mastered the patterns and structures of at least 95 different natural languages – plus many of the major coding languages like Python and Javascript.  Moreover, this powerful model means you can get translated on demand - all it takes is adding your target language into the prompt before getting started.

ChatGPT can automatically translate museum content, such as exhibit labels, descriptions, or educational resources, into multiple languages, providing accurate and reliable translations that can be used to enhance visitor engagement and accessibility, reach new audiences, and promote cultural exchange and understanding. Additionally, ChatGPT can also provide language support through its chatbot service, allowing visitors to communicate in their preferred language and enhancing their overall experience at the museum.

Museums can use NLP technologies like ChatGPT for real-time translation, making exhibits more accessible to diverse audiences. ChatGPT's multilingual capabilities and ability to generate human-like text in multiple languages revolutionize natural language processing tasks. Beyond visitor experience, automated translation technology can aid in historical and international cultural research, such as unlocking secrets of ancient languages and translating Chinese texts.

4. Promoting Events

ChatGPT can revolutionize event promotion for museums by serving as a virtual assistant, providing event information, answering inquiries, sending reminders, and offering personalized recommendations through a conversational interface on websites or social media channels.

As a valuable asset for museum membership programs, ChatGPT generates compelling content like engaging event invitations, informative social media posts, and captivating email newsletters, showcasing the unique aspects of each event. It can also generate content for an event itself! For example, it can create an immersive story for an exhibition opening, highlighting the featured artists and their creative journeys, or generate an intriguing description for a members-only curator-led tour, sparking curiosity and interest.

Leveraging ChatGPT's capabilities can also ensure event promotion resonates with target audiences, driving increased attendance and engagement. For example, The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) used audience segmentation and tailored content in their newsletter to boost their engagement and event attendance. They sent inactive members personalized event invitations, and sent post-event attendees thank-you emails with feedback requests. This approach not only increased their newsletter open rates by 15% , it increased event attendance by 30%. What’s more, between 2011 and 2018, the museum increased the number of events they held from 25 to 800!

Envision the ease of accomplishing such feats with an AI assistant handling the labor-intensive tasks of segmentation, personalization, and content creation. Tools like ChatGPT simplify these processes, freeing up time and resources for museum staff to concentrate on crucial aspects like event planning and engaging with visitors and members. This enables museums with smaller budgets, limited personnel, and less technical expertise to emulate the success of event powerhouses like the MAH!

5. Personalizing communication

In today's world, consumers expect highly personalized services tailored to their specific needs, as data collection and customized user experiences continue to grow. McKinsey reports that 72% of consumers expect personalized communication from brands, which not only improves member  satisfaction and loyalty, but also helps organizations better understand and serve their constituents. Companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Starbucks  pioneered machine learning models for personalization, using A/B testing at scale to fine-tune their algorithms.

Museums and cultural organizations can leverage ChatGPT to create customized visitor experiences by analyzing interests and preferences, suggesting personalized tours, providing tailored information and recommendations, and offering interactive experiences like quizzes, games, or augmented reality. Integrating ChatGPT into websites, mobile apps, or kiosks can enhance visitor engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty.

ChatGPT can also support marketing efforts by analyzing constituent segments and generating custom communications, personalized recommendations, and targeted calls-to-action.With segmentation, sending targeted push notification campaigns to specific users or groups, push notification open rates jump by 21% – and personalization can quadruple open rates, suggesting push notifications are a great tool to leverage customization and maximize engagement.

The Georgia Aquarium exemplifies the power of personalization. They used targeted email marketing based on demographics and previous interactions, such as names, zip codes, visit history, and membership status. By categorizing visitors and sending tailored emails, the aquarium deepened relationships and boosted brand awareness, resulting in an 89% increase in open rates, a 288% increase in engagement, and a 21% revenue increase attributed to the digital channel.

6. Engaging Visitors Onsite and Online

Cuseum's 2022 Hybrid Report revealed that, following the pandemic, an increasing number of museums and cultural institutions are adopting a hybrid approach that combines digital and in-person programming. This trend is supported by research from Gensler, which suggests that offering a variety of virtual activities and online engagement opportunities, while maintaining the classic onsite experience, will be crucial for driving engagement and  creating compelling  museum experiences in the future.

How can ChatGPT help?  To foster online engagement, it can generate captivating exhibit and artifact descriptions, immersive storytelling, guided tour scripts, and accessibility features, fostering a rich and inclusive virtual experience. It can also create interactive content such as trivia, quizzes, or discussion points to encourage active participation from remote visitors.

Onsite engagement is important in driving membership growth, as not only are member renewal rates positively correlated with the number of times a member visits your organization, but with their level of engagement onsite as well! For onsite engagement, ChatGPT can enhance the visitor experience through interactive guides, customized exhibit descriptions, and engaging audio tours tailored to specific visitor demographics or interests. Additionally, it can integrate with museum apps or kiosks to provide real-time exhibit or event recommendations based on visitor preferences, encouraging deeper interaction with the museum's offerings.

7. Offering 24/7 Visitor and Member Services

As consumers increasingly embrace chatbots for customer service, museums and arts & culture organizations can leverage ChatGPT to provide 24/7 visitor assistance. According to Opus Research, 48% of consumers don’t mind whether a human or chatbot assists them, and 35% want more companies to adopt this technology. ChatGPT offers an AI-powered chatbot service that can manage routine tasks such as membership sign-up, renewal, and payment processing. It can also answer inquiries, provide personalized recommendations, and send automated notifications. Moreover, it offers interactive experiences like quizzes or games without requiring human intervention. By using ChatGPT, museums can deliver prompt, efficient service, enhance visitor satisfaction, and reduce staffing costs, ultimately improving member engagement and retention.

8. Collecting & Analyzing Visitor Data

Although NLP algorithms like ChatGPT aren't specifically designed for collecting audience data, they can be extremely powerful tools for analyzing and interpreting such information. By processing visitor feedback, social media posts, and other unstructured data sources, these algorithms reveal insights and trends, enabling museums to better comprehend their audience, optimize resources, and enhance their impact and relevance.

For instance, The American Museum of Natural History in New York uses  IBM Watson's NLP to analyze the feedback they receive from visitors through surveys and online platforms. NLP platforms can process large amounts of qualitative data and extract concepts, categories, relationships, and emotions by analyzing the sentiment associated with commonly-used words in the museum's Net Promoter Score surveys. In addition, the museum also uses Google's Cloud Natural Language Processing API to analyze TripAdvisor reviews for insights on visitor sentiment and experience.

Similarly, ChatGPT can help museums analyze visitor data  by processing feedback from visitor surveys or online reviews. By examining the sentiment associated with commonly-used words and phrases, ChatGPT can identify patterns in visitor experiences, preferences, and expectations. Museums can then utilize these insights to make data-driven decisions, such as refining exhibit content, enhancing visitor services, or tailoring marketing campaigns to target specific audience segments. 

While human interpretation remains necessary, NLP services like ChatGPT offer a cost-effective way for museums to derive focused insights from vast amounts of qualitative data, ultimately enhancing their ability to meet visitors' needs and expectations.

9. enhanced Fundraising

Following the pandemic, the arts and culture sector experienced a significant boost in donations, receiving $23.5 billion, which accounted for 5 percent of total charitable contributions. Although this marked an impressive  27 percent increase from the previous year, according to the 2022 M+R Benchmarks Study, the surge was mainly due to a post-pandemic rebound and as of 2022, the museum industry's market size still hadn't reached pre-pandemic levels, indicating the need for innovative fundraising solutions.

Enter ChatGPT: a powerful AI language model capable of helping museums raise funds by generating persuasive, tailored content for various donor segments. From engaging donation appeals and impact stories to personalized acknowledgments and informative updates, ChatGPT assists museums in strengthening donor relationships, boosting donations, and reaching fundraising targets.

Consider a natural history museum seeking funds for a new dinosaur exhibit. ChatGPT can create a multi-faceted campaign that includes persuasive appeals, impact stories, personalized thank-yous, and progress updates. This comprehensive approach keeps donors informed, engaged, and motivated to contribute to the project's success.

To harness ChatGPT's potential, simply provide specific prompts, such as crafting an email for a children's science exhibit, composing a social media post for a restoration project, or drafting an invitation for a fundraising gala. With these prompts, ChatGPT generates targeted content to bolster fundraising efforts across multiple communication channels, ensuring that museums continue to thrive and enrich our cultural landscape.

ChatGPT and similar AI technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way we experience and interact with art and culture. While there may be challenges to overcome, such as concerns around authenticity, privacy, and the impact on traditional art forms, there are substantial benefits for museums and cultural organizations of all kinds.

ChatGPT can enable greater insight into visitor behavior patterns so museums can make smarter decisions faster; it can create personalized experiences that keep existing visitors engaged; reduce costs associated with manual labor; increase efficiency across departments, freeing up resources for higher value activities; improve the visitor and member experience by offering 24/7 customer service and support; all while allowing them access even more data points than ever before — thus making it one of the most important tools available today for any type of cultural institution looking to stay competitive in an ever-changing digital landscape!

Further Reading:

• Top Technology Trends In 2023 – And What They Mean For Museums & Cultural Organizations

• Generative AI: Imagining a future of AI-dominated creativity (Venture Beat)

• Introducing AI-Powered Multilingual Translations