AI: Present and future with Double Eagle and Made Media

Cultural institutions are developing their approach to AI amid rapid change – and the organizations making meaningful progress are grounding innovation in their identity, values, and principles. This extended session brings together Double Eagle and Made Media for two complementary perspectives: what arts organizations can build with their data today, and how to prepare for where AI is taking the sector next, followed by a moderated discussion and audience Q&A.

Arts and cultural organizations are sitting on a goldmine of patron, fundraising, ticketing, marketing, and engagement data – but too often that data lives in disconnected systems, limiting its strategic value. Double Eagle will explore how organizations can modernize their data strategy by connecting Tessitura and Amazon Redshift with Microsoft Fabric to create a unified, AI-ready data environment. From there, attendees will see how Power BI and Microsoft Copilot can transform raw data into predictive insights, executive dashboards, operational intelligence, and natural-language AI interactions.

Made Media will widen the lens to the economics driving all of this. Every arts and cultural organization lives with Baumol's cost disease: the cost of everything around the performance rises year on year, while the performance itself – rightly – doesn't get more "productive." AI is the first technology in decades capable of meaningfully compressing the administrative cost and effort that surrounds the artistic work. Their half offers a practical framework for thinking about AI – what it can credibly do today, where it's heading (including autonomous agents managing operational workflows and a shift toward AI-mediated commerce that will change how patrons discover and buy tickets), and why most AI pilots fail to deliver: the organizations seeing real returns are redesigning work around the technology, not bolting it onto existing processes – ending with four concrete steps any organization can take now, regardless of budget, to prepare for a future that's arriving faster than most planning cycles assume.