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De Man, A.; Khater, M. Artificial Intelligence and Heritage Management. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/61857 (accessed on 04 November 2026).
De Man A, Khater M. Artificial Intelligence and Heritage Management. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/61857. Accessed November 04, 2026.
De Man, Adriaan, Mohamed Khater. "Artificial Intelligence and Heritage Management" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/61857 (accessed November 04, 2026).
De Man, A., & Khater, M. (2026, November 04). Artificial Intelligence and Heritage Management. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/61857
De Man, Adriaan and Mohamed Khater. "Artificial Intelligence and Heritage Management." Encyclopedia. Web. 04 November, 2026.
Peer Reviewed

Artificial Intelligence and Heritage Management

This is a peer-reviewed entry published in Encyclopedia Journal, full entry can be found at https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia6070142

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in heritage management refers to the use of computational systems for tasks conventionally associated with human intelligence. These range from pattern recognition to prediction and language processing, among other dimensions such as image analysis or decision support, across the cultural and creative industries. AI applications are commonly applied in daily settings, namely for site management and visitor experience enhancement. Beyond its multiple technical functions, AI acts as a mediating infrastructure that influences how heritage knowledge is produced. Consequently, AI raises epistemological, ontological, ethical, and political questions for the future of heritage management. This entry takes into account the interconnected concepts of authenticity, authority, representation, and participation.

heritage theory digital culture posthumanism cultural preservation synthetic intellect
Artificial Intelligence is rapidly affecting the process through which cultural assets are documented and shared with the public, which has become a topic of intense scholarly interest [1][2][3]. The idea of managing cultural resources evolved from an originally conservation-centric notion to a broad interdisciplinary field [4] that brings together intangible expressions, community outreach, economic representation, and many other social dimensions [5]. This progression is parallel to an academic movement that takes heritage as constructed and everchanging, rather than a passively inherited element of the past [6].
The term “community” used in this entry refers to the entirety of stakeholder groups involved in the production and consumption of cultural heritage. Within the wide collective of local residents, one may look specifically at source communities (e.g., indigenous peoples, descendant communities, ethnic minorities, etc. ) in a given functional relation with museum or site audiences, practitioners, and heritage professionals of different types. Such groups express diverse interests and values, forcing community participation into a continuous negotiation on concepts such as meaning and ownership, hence the interpretation of heritage resources.
A dynamic perception of heritage allows for integrated possibilities in terms of AI, namely through complex data acquisition and processing, from sites to cultural performances and archives [7][8][9]. Yet its qualitative nature also inhibits mere technological deployments and requires human investment in the production, validation, and consumption of heritage. Communities, both local and visiting, provide a cultural meaning to components of everyday life, and this is not spontaneously captured by AI solutions alone [10].
The underlying paradigms and their ongoing shifts are conceptually analyzed below. A growing use of AI in heritage management raises important questions about how cultural knowledge is mediated. In short, how is cultural knowledge to be processed, and what are the ethical and socio-political implications of AI instruments in heritage management? Progressively integrating AI into cultural heritage domains also means that, apart from operational advantages, the very conceptualization of collective memory is transformed [11]. Contemporary scholarship acknowledges that mediation through technology is moving beyond a function of interpretation and transforms heritage [12][13]. In other words, historical consciousness becomes partly shaped by algorithms that manipulate cultural data in ways that remain opaque to end users.
As a result, societal memory is processed mediated through predictive digital systems. Most daily life environments are unproblematically data-driven, but tensions do arise when communities are forced to negotiate between their very specific emotional memory and representations optimized by AI [14]. The challenge lies not in categorizing and optimizing heritage preservation with computational support [15][16], but in determining the sort of cultural translation that ensures convenient heritage representations. These originate in experiential, non-digital meanings and their dataset encoding results in abstractions contrary to perceived authenticity.
With these premises in mind, AI and heritage management are examined below through a practical and theoretical lens. The discussion takes heritage as a socially constructed process before exploring the several implications of AI on cultural authority, which in turn affects knowledge production and interpretation. This part is followed by an overview of key AI applications in heritage management: computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing, and digital reconstruction. The entry then considers the ramifications for responsible governance.

References

  1. Münster, S.; Maiwald, F.; di Lenardo, I.; Henriksson, J.; Isaac, A.; Graf, M.M.; Beck, C.; Oomen, J. Artificial Intelligence for Digital Heritage Innovation: Setting up a R&D Agenda for Europe. Heritage 2024, 7, 794–817.
  2. Harisanty, D.; Obille, K.L.B.; Anna, N.E.V.; Purwanti, E.; Retrialisca, F. Cultural heritage preservation in the digital age, harnessing artificial intelligence for the future: A bibliometric analysis. Digit. Libr. Perspect. 2024, 40, 609–630.
  3. Liu, Y.; Song, P. Creating sustainable cultural industries: The perspective of artificial intelligence and global value chain. J. Environ. Public Health 2022, 2022, 6768388.
  4. Mistrean, L.; Sharma, B. Artificial intelligence for cultural preservation: Using advanced technology to sustain heritage sites. In Sustainable Development Unveiled; Elsevier: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2026; pp. 205–227.
  5. Muñoz-Viñas, S. A Theory of Cultural Heritage: Beyond the Intangible; Routledge: London, UK, 2023.
  6. Jones, T. Heritage Is Movement: Heritage Management and Research in a Diverse and Plural World; Routledge: London, UK, 2023.
  7. Dauletov, A.; Muminov, B.; Matyakubova, N.; Abdurahmonova, U.; Bakhriyeva, K.; Fayzieva, M. Development of a Software Model for Classification and Automatic Cataloging of Archive Documents. Information 2026, 17, 341.
  8. Lenggogeni, L.; Ramadhan, M.A.; Purnomo, A.; Pratama, G.N.I.P.; Fadli, R. The role of digital technologies in heritage building maintenance: A comprehensive bibliometric study. AIP Conf. Proc. 2025, 3354, 040001.
  9. Woycicki, P.; Chamberlain, A.; Borokini, F. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and contemporary performance: Developing an arts & humanities approach to AI. Int. J. Perform. Arts Digit. Media 2025, 21, 227–239.
  10. McDougall, A.; Gerardo, H. Hybrid Human-AI Systems for Preserving Cultural Heritage and Craftsmanship. In HHAI; IOS Press: Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2025; Volume 408, pp. 74–81.
  11. Gensburger, S.; Clavert, F. Is artificial intelligence the future of collective memory? Mem. Stud. Rev. 2024, 1, 195–208.
  12. Nappi, M.L.; Buono, M.; Chivăran, C.; Giusto, R.M. Models and tools for the digital organisation of knowledge: Accessible and adaptive narratives for cultural heritage. Herit. Sci. 2024, 12, 122.
  13. Sánchez-Vera, F. Critical algorithmic mediation: Rethinking cultural transmission and education in the age of artificial intelligence. Societies 2025, 15, 198.
  14. Beerends, S.; Aydin, C. Negotiating the authenticity of AI: How the discourse on AI rejects human indeterminacy. AI Soc. 2025, 40, 263–276.
  15. Mansuri, L.E.; Patel, D.A. Artificial intelligence for heritage conservation: A case study of automatic visual inspection system. In Current State of Art in Artificial Intelligence and Ubiquitous Cities; Springer Nature: Singapore, 2022; pp. 1–15.
  16. Mishra, M.; Lourenço, P.B. Artificial intelligence-assisted visual inspection for cultural heritage: State-of-the-art review. J. Cult. Herit. 2024, 66, 536–550.
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Subjects: Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism
Contributors MDPI registered users' name will be linked to their SciProfiles pages. To register with us, please refer to https://encyclopedia.pub/register : Adriaan De Man , Mohamed Khater
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Entry Collection: Encyclopedia of Heritage
Online Date: 04 Nov 2026
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