MCN 2026

This summer, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art launched the first version of its very own AI Companion App designed to help visitors identify works of art and have a rich conversation about what they’re seeing—all with artificial intelligence.

One major question we had to answer: can a conversational AI experience, even one designed in partnership with the museum’s curatorial staff, be trusted as a real-time visitor companion?

In this highly practical and engaging 45‑minute session, Stace Treat - Director of Interpretation - and Amanda Boomstra - Strategic advisor for museums - will share the product and institutional decisions required to make AI experiences trustworthy, deeply engaging, and built to scale beyond the current collection. Our starting point is always visitor value: we build what genuinely enhances the experience, not what simply showcases technology. 

We’ll cover the end-to-end approach: shaping a companion personality and conversation design that mirrors natural turns in human conversation; the challenges of grounding responses in legacy collections data; and designing accessible, inclusive interaction patterns that feel familiar to every user. Attendees will leave with clear takeaways for pairing data foundations, governance, and UX transparency to sustain trust in AI-driven interpretation over time.