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The art market knows it can’t ignore A.I.—it’s just not entirely sure what to do with it. Despite a surge of interest, concrete use cases remain limited and industry-specific tools are still in their infancy.
Art firms are under pressure to experiment with the new technology without overcommitting, particularly in the wake of the NFT bust in 2022. While A.I. is unlikely to upend the market overnight, those who integrate it strategically—especially in data, discovery, and operations—could gain a meaningful edge within the next five years.
Going Mainstream?
Competing claims about A.I. as either over-hyped or the ultimate disruptor have amplified uncertainty about when—or whether—to invest.
In an industry where trust and relationships are king, it is little surprise that early experiments with art-specific A.I. tools have often been relegated to the fringes. When the Web3 marketplace, LiveArt began publicly offering A.I.-powered analytics in 2022, the service was explicitly aimed at new investors, not seasoned collectors.
Bonhams’ Bond Street HQ London. Photo: Hufton+Crow/View Pictures/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.
Yet A.I. is now infiltrating the mainstream. In March, a new partnership was announced between Bonhams and the tech company ARTDAI, which describes itself as “a leading provider of next-generation market analytics for fine art.” Bonhams CEO Seth Johnson told me that the partnership allows the 230-year-old auction house to explore applications of A.I. for specialists, “particularly market patterns, supporting valuation, and helping our teams access insight more efficiently.”
A Size Issue
These kinds of B2B solutions may be a game changer. In an A.I.-focused online course for Art Market Minds Academy earlier this week, former Art Basel chief Marc Spiegler said the art industry’s small size is what kept it lagging behind on previous technology advancements. In comparison to retail or real estate, there was little incentive for tech developers to make art-specific products. Only a handful of mega-galleries were in a position to invest millions in custom sales management systems.
But Spiegler predicts a “big shift” as A.I. puts “high performance technology in the reach of small businesses and individuals for whom it was not financially viable before.” In particular, art-specific companies like ARTDAI and the newly merged Artsy and Artnet have made providing galleries with new A.I. capabilities a founding mission.
ARTDAI has seen a surge of interest over the past 18 months from art businesses big and small, CEO Alican Arcasoy said. The company still works primarily with auction houses, including Heritage Auctions and Strauss & Co., as well as insurance carriers. A principal offering is the restructuring of complex datasets so that they are ready “for future A.I. deployment.”
Two people work at a laptop while sitting in front of artworks by Argentine-Italian artist Lucio Fontana during Miart on April 3, 2025 in Milan. Photo: Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images.
Thinking Inventively
As for the here and now, art businesses can already start thinking more inventively about A.I. today.
Across industries, the tech is largely being used for “discovery,” or offering personalized recommendations to buyers that could translate into sales. Speaking at the Art Market Minds event, Alan Lau, a collector and tech investor, asked attendees “are you even visible in the world of A.I.?” Everyone should be optimizing content to be readable, and citable, by the A.I. chatbots that have become go-to research tools, he said.
Or, asked Lau, could you use A.I. as your own “Emily”, the all-knowing [human] assistant in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) who remembers the context of every client relationship: When you last met, what they bought, what they liked. This is the logic behind First Thursday, a “collector intelligence” platform that uses algorithms to pull together data that can later be queried for context on new clients or the longer term buying patterns of loyal customers.
This is how early adopters are already using A.I. in sales. “This is not futuristic, it’s not two years from now,” Lau stressed. It’s now.
The Bottom Line
If art businesses have been understandably hesitant about whether to embrace A.I., the excuses for deferring action are running thin. Even without huge resources to invest, art outfits now have access to a growing range of art-specific tools and services promising to do more with their data. The risk-reward odds have never looked so rosy.
