By now, you may have stumbled across "Chloe VS History" in your social media feed or on YouTube.
If not, go take a look. I'll wait.
Chloe is an AI-generated avatar who "travels" through history, hanging out in pre-revolutionary Paris, dodging the eruption of Pompeii, and sneaking into the first-class section on the Titanic. She's got the vibe of a travel influencer: casual, enthusiastic, and a little amazed by everything.
The YouTube channel has racked up hundreds of thousands of subscribers and millions of views, and the videos are genuinely watchable.
The person behind Chloe is Jonathan Laramie, who also runs Majestic Studios, a history channel that hit 14 million views in 90 days using AI to bring historical scenes to life. In a recent interview, Laramie, who has no background in filmmaking, talks candidly about what separates his work from the tsunami of AI garbage: trust and accuracy in sources, genuine creative investment, and a consistent storytelling voice.
Now, before you roll your eyes and mutter something about "AI slop," I think there's something genuinely worth paying attention to here, particularly for those of us who work in history museums.
The secret sauce isn't really the AI visuals (though they're impressive). It's the perspective. Chloe works because she positions herself as a curious visitor to history, not a lecturer about it. She's learning alongside you. She reacts. She wanders. She asks the dumb-but-honest questions non-historians would ask if they felt comfortable doing so.
Sound familiar? It should. That's good interpretive design. (It's also worth noting that Laramie comes from the customer service space.)
So here's the question worth asking: what would it look like if YOUR museum used AI-generated media—not to replace human storytelling, but to model the kind of curious, visitor-centered engagement you want to spark? A short "first visit to a Colonial kitchen" clip to play at a program intro, or an AI character who "experiences" your exhibit for the first time and invites visitors to do the same?
The AI technology is accessible. The approach is already working at scale since the Chloe Channel was built by just one guy with no film training and a lot of curiosity.
The only thing missing is history institutions willing to experiment thoughtfully with accurate content, genuine curiosity, and real visitors in mind.
Chloe currently doesn't have all those advantages, but history museums do!
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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