AI and Design

Is The Art World Embracing Al?

- By Geo Merchant

Echoes of Straddled Epochs by Botto (2023)

This article was written by Geo Merchant. All artworks included in this article were created using AI.

Al has become a household term, with Collins Dictionary voting it the word of the year in 2023. ChatGPT became the fastest company ever to reach 1 million users, and DALL-E shocked the world by creating images within seconds that would have taken traditional artists days.

The traditional art world has typically been slow to adopt new technologies in the post-internet age, favoring physical art mediums such as painting and sculpture, and preferring personal, relationship-driven art advisory. Yet, there’s a shift happening. More artists are incorporating Al into their creative processes, and collectors and dealers use AI tools to inform their art acquisitions.

So, is AI the future of the art world?

Al as an Art Medium

2021 saw the wake of NFTs, non-fungible tokens, with Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5,000 Days (2021) selling at Sotheby's for an enormous $69.3 million, making it one of the most expensive artworks ever sold. Digital art began to enter the mainstream art world.