As first-time MCNers, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. But the lively community conversations that began well before the conference had us excited to join in. For anyone looking to keep their finger on the pulse of technology in the museum sector, this is a must-join community. We wanted to share a few of our impressions from the experience.
Most tech conferences are showcases where everyone brings their best launch. MCN is different. In Seattle this October, technologists, educators, and museum leaders shared the experiments still in progress: what’s working, what isn’t, and what they’re still figuring out. One first-time attendee summed up the feeling, thanking a room full of people “who share the same struggles and ambitions.” It’s a community helping one another turn the siloed museum into something connected and collaborative. Here’s what stood out.
1. Presence, presence, presence
The strongest message of MCN 2026 was that tech should help visitors be present in the space. If a digital experience doesn’t bring people closer to their community’s knowledge and treasures, it isn’t doing its job.
The National Gallery of Art’s “Cultivating Awe with Art Online” grew out of research with UC Berkeley’s Social Interaction Lab. The team designs digital experiences that invite slow looking, curiosity, and emotional connection, not just scrolling. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian described its Welcome Media project as helping visitors see the museum as a collection of relationships as much as a collection of objects. And the Phillips Collection session on “Magical, Tactile Media Devices” was all about physical objects that carry digital content but feel anything but digital. Chad Weinard, a technology and strategy consultant for put the opportunity this way: “I wonder if AI and audience response to it will create space for museums to be more human.”
Sometimes being present means choosing not to automate. Kamilah Stinnett of the National Museum of African American History and Culture explained that her team considered using AI to transcribe Freedmen’s Bureau records and decided against it. Volunteer transcription exists so people can connect directly with primary sources.
2. AI is a powerful tool in expert hands
The AI conversation at MCN wasn’t about replacing people. It was about giving skilled staff leverage. Two places stood out:
Accessibility metadata. The Cleveland Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art shared workflows that use generative AI to draft visual descriptions for every primary image in their online collections, making sure that these processes fit firmly within the larger goals of institutional data management. Relatedly, Bloomberg Connects ran a pilot with nine institutions and more than 450 images. It found that trust came from making sure that museum professionals felt empowered to edit and authorize the final alt text that was published. The sessions title says it all: “Designed to Draft, Not Author.”
Owning the stack. In “Reclaiming Your Digital Infrastructure,” the Menil, the Whitney, the Lucas Museum, and AREA 17 looked at how vibe coding and agentic development can make data transformations possible. The Menil’s Michelle Gude described the goal as “owning our data path”: owning the infrastructure as well as the data.
The guardrails were just as clear. nikhil trivedi told the room, “We won’t do AI just to do AI.”
3. Want to know if new tech will help? Iterate.
Even proven tools need testing to fit a particular institution. The Met’s first Technologist in Residence presented 15 visitor-facing AI prototypes built over six months, including small successes and outright failures. The MIT Museum is treating its galleries as a public lab, studying how visitors respond to an AI gallery guide, a misinformation exhibit, and a robotic docent. LACMA’s two-person digital team launched Collections Online in about three and a half months and then gave “an honest look” at what that took. The Museum of Flight and the Museum of Pop Culture argued that a digital exhibit starts changing on opening day, so museums need to keep the skills in-house to keep improving it.
As one attendee put it in the Slack backchannel, quoting a speaker: “AI is easy, but product is still hard.”
MCN is a space where no one has it all figured out, and that’s the point. Serving institutions and visitors at the same time means staying inside both the excitement and the stress of digital transformation, while keeping human connection at the center. Join the community and join next year’s event, it’s a must and we’re already looking forward to it.
