A new survey of over 200 arts and culture professionals across North America finds that AI adoption is growing across the sector but remains largely informal and individually driven, with most organisations yet to develop the infrastructure to support widespread adoption of the technology.
The State of AI & the Arts 2026, published by Capacity, finds that 59 per cent of respondents report using AI more than they did in 2025, with the conversation shifting from curiosity to practical application. However, 69 per cent describe their AI use as individual experimentation rather than coordinated team or organisation-wide strategy, and 73 per cent are using AI for basic, one-off tasks rather than repeatable workflows or integrated systems. According to SmarterX data cited in the report, just 8 per cent of arts marketers are in the integration or transformation phase of AI adoption, compared with 53 per cent of professionals outside the sector.
Content creation and communications remain the most common application, cited by 66 per cent of respondents, though use is broadening into analytics and reporting (45 per cent), audience insights (33 per cent) and workflow automation (26 per cent). Fundraising and donor communications (25 per cent) also emerged as a notable application area. The leading benefit reported is time savings, with 69 per cent of respondents saving time through AI use, most typically between one and five hours per week. However, 58 per cent are still not measuring AI’s impact beyond time savings, and only 20 per cent report measurable improvements.
Most organisations, however, still lack the frameworks to support AI effectively. Twenty-nine per cent of arts and culture organisations now have a formal AI policy, up from 14 per cent in 2025, but more than two-thirds still lack formal guidance. Seventy-eight per cent have no designated owner or team responsible for AI initiatives, 51 per cent report making no organisational investment in AI beyond tools, and 91 per cent of organisations offer no structured AI training.
Fear and mistrust have overtaken lack of training as the biggest barrier to adoption, cited by 43 per cent of respondents, followed by lack of education (41 per cent). Concerns are also evolving: where respondents in 2025 focused on broad issues such as accuracy and authenticity, in 2026 they are raising more specific questions around loss of human voice, environmental impact, artist intellectual property and potential audience or donor backlash.
Forty-five per cent of respondents describe themselves as cautiously optimistic about AI, though the proportion identifying as concerned has grown from 28 per cent to 36 per cent since 2025, with 10 per cent now identifying as actively resistant to AI adoption. The report’s summary captures the tension well, noting that one respondent described their position as “excited administratively; extremely concerned artistically.”
The State of AI & the Arts 2026 is published by Capacity, a marketing consulting firm for arts and culture organisations. The full report is available to download at capacityinteractive.com