Three Chatbots Walk Into a Museum...
If you've been following museum tech trends lately, you've probably noticed AI chatbots popping up everywhere. Instead of just reading about them, I decided to roll up my (digital) sleeves and build a few exhibit-focused chatbots to see what all the fuss is about.
Spoiler alert: It's pretty fun, surprisingly educational, and maybe even useful for museums!
Why Museum Chatbots?
Visitors come to museums with wildly different questions, interests, and attention spans. Some want the quick Wikipedia version, others want to dive deep into primary sources, and still others just want to know where the bathrooms are (Pro Tip: chatbots are *terrible* at that last one).
But what if you could give visitors a way to have an actual conversation with a historical figure or topic expert? Not in a creepy uncanny valley way, but in a "here's another tool in your interpretive toolkit" kind of way.
Three Chatbots Walk Into a Museum...
I created three different chatbot experiments, each with a different personality and purpose:
This was my first attempt, and I went straight for the big guy himself. The George Washington chatbot is designed to answer visitor questions about his life, Mount Vernon, and 18th-century America—all while staying in character and citing actual historical sources.
Want to know about his dentures? His relationship with enslaved people at Mount Vernon? His thoughts on political parties? George (or at least this digital version) will chat with you about it. The key here was making sure responses were historically grounded and included source citations, so visitors know this isn't just making stuff up.
Okay, this one's a bit more niche, but hear me out! Ivan Vazov is Bulgaria's national poet, and I created this chatbot to help English-speaking visitors engage with Bulgarian literary history.
This bot can discuss Vazov's works, the Bulgarian National Revival period, and even translate some of his poetry. It's a great example of how chatbots can make culturally specific content more accessible to international audiences without oversimplifying it.
In the spirit of full transparency, and maybe a little ego, I created a chatbot version of myself to answer questions about museum exhibit design, visitor engagement, and the ExhibiTricks blog.
This one's less about historical accuracy and more about sharing professional expertise in a conversational format. It's like having a museum consultant available 24/7, except this one never gets tired of explaining why hands-on exhibits shouldn't be overly complicated.
What I Learned
The Good:
• Creating these chatbots was surprisingly quick and iterative. You can test, refine, and improve the personality and accuracy pretty easily.
• They're genuinely useful for handling the "long tail" of visitor questions that traditional labels can't address.
• The ability to cite sources means visitors can dig deeper if they want to verify information.
The Not-So-Good:
• You need to be really thoughtful about accuracy and bias. These tools can confidently state incorrect information if you're not careful.
• They're not a replacement for well-designed exhibits or human interpretation—they're a supplement.
• Accessibility is still a work in progress (think: screen reader compatibility, multilingual support).
Should Your Museum Make a Chatbot?
Maybe! Here are some questions to ask first:
• Do your visitors have questions that go beyond what your labels can address?
• Do you have good primary source material or expertise to draw from?
• Are you comfortable with AI as an interpretive tool, with all its limitations?
• Can you commit to maintaining and updating it over time?
If you answered yes to most of these, it might be worth experimenting. Start small, test with real visitors, and don't be afraid to iterate.
Try Them Out!
All three chatbots mentioned above are live and ready to chat. Click the links above, ask them questions, and see what you think. Are they useful? Gimmicky? Somewhere in between? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!
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