The Future of Libraries is… Collections, Artificial Intelligence and Collaboration

Libraries and other collecting institutions are becoming increasingly intertwined with Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI offers opportunities to enhance cataloguing through natural language processing for better discovery and to improve accessibility via tools such as speech-to-text and visual recognition. However, relying on Generative AI (GenAI) and the large language models behind it as sole sources of information carries significant risks—biases and gaps in training data can lead to inaccuracies and unsupported claims.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) leads research and innovation programmes dedicated to the ethical and responsible development of AI technologies. Our approach is pro-innovation while placing human and planet-centric values at the core, embedding trust, responsibility, and inclusion throughout. These five vignettes showcase collaborations between libraries, archives, collecting organisations, and data scientists that AHRC has supported to explore better ways of harnessing AI for a fairer, more inclusive knowledge future.

Look backwards, think forwards

Living with Machines was a groundbreaking collaboration among historians, data scientists, geographers, linguists, and curators to explore the human impact of the Industrial Revolution. Partners included the British Library, the Alan Turing Institute, and several universities. By leveraging AI to combine and analyse library collections at scale, the project developed new computational tools and resources. Researchers tackled key questions about how disruptive technologies transformed society—shaping work, place, well-being, and social cohesion. Sound familiar?

Agree a way forward

Towards a National Collection (TaNC) explored the technical, ethical, and operational challenges of removing barriers between the UK’s digitised cultural heritage collections. In collaboration with 50 cultural heritage, research, and technology organisations, TaNC’s Unlocking the Potential of Digital Collections report outlined a blueprint for responsibly building a unified UK digital infrastructure. The consensus was clear: such an approach would open significant opportunities for research, public access, and create a substantial new corpus of training data for AI. This laid the foundations for two new major initiatives now underway…

Build the case for investment

UK Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DISSCo) is a £155 million proposal to government to digitise the majority of the UK’s natural science collections over the next decade. Led by the Natural History Museum and AHRC, and involving more than 90 collection organisations, DiSSCo aims to unlock the full scientific, research, and economic potential of these resources. This includes approximately 137 million items spanning 4.6 billion years of history, encompassing diverse data types—genomic, chemical, morphological, geographic, environmental, ecological, taxonomic, and more. A core element of DiSSCo is the integration of AI, from streamlining digitisation workflows to enabling AI-driven scientific discovery.

Alongside this is the National Research Infrastructure for Cultural Heritage, a two-year programme to prototype the core components of a future UK-wide research infrastructure envisioned by TaNC. Its key activities include a digitisation capability pilot, a collections innovation lab to test AI-as-a-service for research and access, and the creation of frameworks addressing environmental impact, ethics, and cybersecurity. This will provide further evidence for a case to support large-scale investment into a national digital infrastructure for cultural collections.

Lead the way on responsible AI

Bridging Responsible AI Divides is a £16 million AHRC-funded programme aimed at closing gaps between academia, industry, policy, and regulation in the field of responsible AI. Led by the University of Edinburgh in partnership with the BBC and the Ada Lovelace Institute, the initiative focuses on embedding ethical and responsible approaches to AI development, deployment, and governance across sectors—including public services such as libraries and archives—and through regulatory and policy frameworks within government departments.

Do things differently

Doing AI Differently is an international initiative placing the Humanities at the heart of AI development. Led by The Alan Turing Institute, the University of Edinburgh, and AHRC-UKRI, it has rapidly convened a vibrant international network of humanities scholars, information professionals, data scientists, and technologists across six continents. The initiative promotes a new vision for humanistic, ethical AI—emphasizing deeper interpretive capabilities, multiple perspectives, and culturally inclusive systems. It seeks to move beyond AI as mere substitution or assistance, fostering human–AI partnerships to achieve outcomes neither could accomplish alone. In February 2026, a series of research sandpits supported by AHRC and Canada’s SSHRC will embed humanities insights and methodologies into AI design.

So where does all this lead us?

The UK Government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan sets out ambitions for AI across research, the economy, public services, and society. It calls for AI development that drives economic growth, improves public services, enhances citizen–government interactions, supports world-class research and innovation, and unlocks new avenues for creativity and skills development.

Long-standing collaborations between Research Libraries UK and AHRC on skills have shown the vital role libraries can play in this vision—addressing trust and information verification, ethics and inclusion for better AI training data, metadata enhancement, and improving digital access and usability. These partnerships have been practical and forward-looking, shaping service models that didn’t exist a decade ago.

In a global, technology-driven AI landscape, AHRC’s work with libraries, archives, galleries, and museums on the responsible use of AI in relation to their unique collections and staff expertise offers enormous potential—and is fundamental to building a fair, inclusive knowledge future.

---

About the author

Dr Allan Sudlow is Director of Partnerships and Engagement at the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). He leads AHRC strategy and partnerships across cultural, heritage and creative sectors, and oversees major physical and digital research infrastructure investments. He previously headed Research Development at the British Library, shaping its research strategy as an Independent Research Organisation.

Skip past comments, to footer Skip past comments, to main