In an age when artificial intelligence (AI) has become the secular religion of virtually every industry discussion, the stark contrast in reactions to its rise is striking. Entrepreneurs around me, from finance to retail, rush eagerly toward AI, chasing better client experiences and smoother operations. Yet the art world continues to treat AI with suspicion, viewing it more as an existential threat than as a potent economic ally, a troubling stance for a market that, over the past two years, has faced multiple macroeconomic shocks.
While creative industries everywhere wrestle with similar anxieties about authenticity and originality, the art market’s defensive stance feels particularly misguided, obscuring the significant economic opportunities AI offers
In fact, the most transformational potential of AI is unlikely to be in forging a new aesthetic or in toppling traditional painters. Rather, it lies in the unglamorous machinery beneath the art market’s glossy veneer: logistics, administrative tasks and data-driven business operations, such as automating insurance, accelerating provenance checks, optimising shipping routes and turning friction-heavy transactions into one-click processes. It is precisely through these back-office innovations that AI may well unlock billions of dollars in liquidity to enrich not just auctioneers and collectors but the wider creative ecosystem.
Shot in the arm
Let us consider the broader landscape. Around $1.7 trillion worth of privately held art exists worldwide, yet only around 3.4% of it is traded each year, translating to roughly $57.5bn in annual market turnover in 2024. It does not take an Ivy League economist to see that if that percentage of traded works rose from 3.4% to 4.4%, we would unleash over $17bn worth of extra activity, an immediate shot in the arm to everyone from dealers and restorers to insurance brokers, transport specialists and artists themselves.
Why such little turnover? A partial answer lurks in dusty, antiquated processes. For many in the gallery world, the entire workflow looks much as it did two decades ago: reliance on printed certificates, patchy provenance checks, loose valuations scrawled into Excel spreadsheets, and extraordinary friction in shipping and customs. No wonder new buyers, particularly younger ones more accustomed to one-click e-commerce, often throw their hands up in frustration.
AI promises a suite of tools, from quotation algorithms to dynamic valuations, that can cut through the thicket. It is not that blockchain or tokens hold the master key. (One can be forgiven for rolling their eyes at the “Web3” hype.) The real breakthrough is removing friction from transactions and ensuring that each step unfolds seamlessly, in a single, easily digestible platform. That is how you convert the mythical 3.4% turnover into 4.4% or beyond, fuelling the market’s expansion from within.
More Amazon, fewer NFTs
While the headlines spotlight AI-generated images and record NFT sales, the true gold may lie in just getting the selling experience right. Strange as it sounds, these areas—integrated checkout, well-functioning websites and one-click shipping— are exactly what many art-world panels omit, presumably because talk of logistics and data-driven efficiencies feels decidedly unglamorous. Yet these are precisely the hurdles that discourage potential buyers and clamp down on market growth.
Curiously, it all points to a broader shortfall in basic digital competence. In most other retail segments, displaying items clearly online, enabling straightforward payments and offering automated shipping quotes are table stakes. In the art world, however, clients sometimes wait days for a shipping firm’s email, tracking details remain murky and reams of paper forms still prevail. AI can help automate quotes, co-ordinate multiple suppliers and offer real-time checks to prevent errors, while customs or insurance can often be rolled into a single digital transaction.
And while integrating an application programming interface (API) to generate instant shipping quotes may currently be beyond the reach of many art-world businesses—either due to limited technical expertise or a lack of dedicated digital infrastructure—AI already offers a pragmatic middle ground. At Convelio, for instance, we just released an AI agent (currently in beta) that allows art-operations professionals to obtain shipping quotes through a conversational, ChatGPT-like interface—often faster and more intuitively than filling out online forms. Crucially, these incremental efficiencies are not limited to logistics alone; similar transformations can occur everywhere from finance and payments to human resources and customer management—each streamlining operations, saving time and enhancing profitability.
The art market, prone as it is to trends, has frequently found itself seduced by so-called silver bullets. Two or three years ago, one could hardly attend an art fair without encountering advocates eagerly touting “blockchain solutions”. Such ideas often have earnest advocates but beneath the clamour, real adoption remains limited.
Where AI genuinely excels is in bringing clarity to complexity: parsing reams of messy data, be it valuations, invoices, customer preferences or administrative minutiae that defy easy manual oversight. The more mundane the problem, the more potent AI’s potential becomes. A well-structured system that streamlines back-office functions, automates repetitive processes or spots inconsistencies in documentation can collectively save the industry millions and potentially unlock billions in additional revenue. That sort of practical efficiency (grounded in everyday business operations) benefits the entire value chain far more profoundly than the ephemeral hype around the “next big crypto experiment”.
Better data, stronger market
In an era when commerce thrives on transparency and trust, it is ironic that the art world—a domain traditionally cloaked in mystique—should find itself on the cusp of an AI-driven transformation. Far from being a trivial add-on, embedding AI into the art market’s daily operations generates a crucial by-product: reliable, standardised data. Why? Because data previously scattered across different stakeholders can now be structured, unified and directly actionable. Galleries and auction houses that systematically adopt AI can capture a treasure trove of metrics on pricing trends, collector behaviour and sales velocity. Shippers and insurers, for their part, can gather data on transit times, damage rates and risk profiles. And the same goes for insurers, valuation experts and other key stakeholders across the art ecosystem.
These once-disparate data streams, when fused and refined through machine learning, become the lifeblood of more accurate valuation models, predictive analytics and dynamic risk assessments. The benefits ripple outward, touching every actor in the supply chain. Imagine a collector navigating an online platform that not only displays real-time transport quotes (Convelio already does that), but also offers data-driven price estimates for works by emerging artists and the ability to purchase insurance with a single click. Such frictionless integration of services does more than modernise the existing market; it tempts an entire generation of digital-savvy buyers for whom efficiency and transparency are second nature.
AI can help the art market shrug off its entrenched reputation for opacity
There is, of course, a deeper implication here. By democratising access to quality data, AI can help the art market shrug off its entrenched reputation for opacity and exclusivity. True liquidity emerges only in an environment of trust, and trust flourishes when authenticity, pricing, provenance and logistics become visible and verifiable. In this sense, AI need not diminish the curatorial and aesthetic sensibilities that define art but fortify them with a new clarity, consistency and fairness.
Where the role of connoisseurship once involved relying on winks and nods behind closed doors, it can now draw on a wider base of information, enabling both seasoned collectors and newcomers to participate with confidence. In a sector that has historically prized hush-hush transactions, that alone is a radical development—and a welcome one at that.
Leadership deficit
Now it is up to established players, those venerable auction houses and storied galleries, to shed their inhibitions and take calculated risks on integrated, data-driven systems. This does not amount to jettisoning their time-honoured prestige; on the contrary, a modernised approach can fortify the trust underpinning their reputations. In an era when everything from groceries to stocks is just a click away, the idea that acquiring art should sometimes remain an intricate dance of phone calls and in-person visits is starting to feel antiquated.
That kind of evolution, however, depends on forward-thinking leadership from individuals prepared to overhaul aging IT infrastructures and unspoken hierarchies that place tradition above innovation. The art market has consistently prized heritage, but failing to read the winds of change in a world tilting towards AI will yield diminishing returns.
Equally crucial is trust in digital-first professionals who bridge the gap between technology and culture. Many of these younger, tech-savvy individuals have internalised current client expectations, influenced by global e-commerce standards: real-time price tracking, robust data visualisations and frictionless transactions. Their insights can help the art ecosystem pivot towards greater transparency and efficiency—qualities that, once considered anathema to mystique, may prove the market’s most urgent necessity.
Then comes the perennial challenge of attracting tech talent—ideally with AI expertise. With Silicon Valley dangling sizable salaries and gleaming stock options, the creative economy is at a disadvantage. Yet if even a fraction of top-tier engineers can be tempted by the romance of fine art, the gains for galleries, auction houses and collectors alike could be immense.
Finally, none of this will matter if systems remain siloed. We need interoperability and open APIs that allow for shared digital connections among auction houses, insurers, shipping agencies and galleries. It sounds about as glamorous as plumbing— yet, as with good plumbing, it is the hidden infrastructure that ensures a smooth user experience: the one-click shipping quotes, the instant insurance coverage, the instantaneous provenance checks that modern collectors now expect.
The aim here is not to dissolve the art world’s unique cultural allure but to modernise its underpinnings. By welcoming informed risk-taking, embracing dynamic leadership and cultivating a new generation of tech-savvy stewards, the sector can emerge stronger, more open and more in tune with the era it inhabits. Indeed, the genuine mystique of art is hardly diminished by making transactions faster or data more transparent; it is, rather, enhanced when today’s innovations finally align with the timeless allure of human creativity.
So, while we ponder how AI might paint, let’s not overlook bigger shifts: how AI is poised to deliver art more efficiently to its audience. Some of the greatest revolutions are those that happen quietly, in the subtle architecture of supply chains and digital processes. And, often, that is precisely where fortunes are made—or remade.
• Edouard Gouin is the founder of Convelio, an art shipping and logistics company
