AI and the Archivist: Partnership, Not Replacement

AI has entered the archives conversation, and the fear is understandable: will technology replace human expertise? In practice, the most successful projects are partnerships where AI tackles the repetitive work and archivists provide the judgement and context.

What AI is good at

AI can:

• Extract names, dates, and locations from text at scale.
• Summarise long documents into short cataloguing notes.
• Suggest subject tags based on similar collections.

What archivists are essential for

Only humans can:

• Interpret ambiguous or culturally sensitive material.
• Apply archival standards and collection-specific conventions.
• Make curatorial decisions that reflect community needs.

A better model

Think of AI as an assistant that drafts the first pass. Archivists review, correct, and enrich. The outcome is faster throughput without sacrificing quality.

In the end, the archive still tells a human story. AI just helps you surface it.