Robert Stein, Chief Information Officer, National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C., U.S.A.)

Robert Stein is a proven museum executive and global thought leader with a passion for transforming communities through experiences that celebrate the significance of diverse cultures, embrace the intrinsic joy found in learning, and tackle the fundamental challenges of our society and planet.

Robert brings deep experience leading and growing teams in complex organizations, executive leadership of education efforts, experience design, and content strategies across multiple settings. Globally recognized for creating innovative onsite and digital experiences with a long-reaching strategic vision, Robert has also demonstrated success in fundraising to support those initiatives and is a sought-after author, speaker, and consultant.

The Real Thing in an Artificial Age: AI, Trust, and the Human Future of the Arts

The backlash against AI is real, and in the arts, it cuts especially deep. For many audiences, especially younger ones, creative work touched by AI feels disingenuous and is quickly dismissed. Opinions and speculation about AI are all around us as the world tries to understand the impacts of these powerful tools on our creativity, the economy, and the planet. But cultural leaders can choose a different approach than either rejecting these tools outright or surrendering our creative agency to them.

This talk explores how AI can help us distill, rather than dilute, the human-value of art: listening more deeply to audiences, identifying the experiential elements that make encounters with art feel essential, and concentrating human effort around interpretation, presence, perspective, and humanity. Used with judgment and restraint, AI does not have to flatten cultural expression toward a global average. It can help us bridge digital and physical worlds, personalize without pandering, and create more resonant encounters with the real thing that build memories and value for our audiences.