How Art Technology Holdings is Building a More Personalized Future for Art and Luxury Collecting Through AI

The art and collectibles industry has long depended on relationships, intuition, and personal expertise. Collectors often rely on years of trust with galleries, advisors, auction specialists, and luxury professionals to navigate purchases that are deeply personal and frequently emotional. At the same time, the process behind those interactions has remained fragmented across emails, PDFs, spreadsheets, messaging apps, invoices, and disconnected administrative systems. 

According to Garry McGuire, Chairman and CEO of Art Technology Holdings, that disconnect has contributed to inefficiencies on both the buyer and seller side of the market, particularly as younger collectors increasingly expect more personalized and technology-enabled experiences.

Garry McGuire

For Art Technology Holdings, the challenge begins with a broader question surrounding how preference itself is understood. The company’s platform, Taste, was developed around the belief that taste has never been fully quantified, structured, or compounded in a meaningful way across the art and luxury sectors. From McGuire’s perspective, the market has historically operated through highly relationship-driven systems where buyers often receive broad recommendations that may not reflect their actual interests, spending patterns, or long-term collecting behavior.

McGuire notes that many interactions within luxury and collectible markets still rely on a wide net approach that consumes time for both sellers and collectors. He explains that buyers are frequently presented with large amounts of inventory or outreach that may not align with their preferences, while sales teams spend significant portions of their day managing administrative workflows instead of focusing on client relationships.

Art Technology Holdings frames Taste as an AI-native operating platform designed to support galleries, auction houses, luxury sellers, and advisors through automation and personalization. Rather than attempting to replace the people operating within those industries, McGuire says the objective is to create systems that allow professionals to spend more time engaging directly with clients and less time handling repetitive operational tasks.

“We are not trying to remove the human element from the experience,” McGuire says. “The goal is to make the people who already have those trusted relationships more efficient and more capable of delivering highly personalized experiences to their clients.”

That distinction appears central to the company’s broader positioning within the art and collectibles market. According to co-founder Trevor Ruegg, previous waves of technology within the industry often focused primarily on marketplaces or inventory systems, while many professionals within the space continued operating through fragmented communication channels and disconnected workflows. Ruegg notes that collectors and sellers still frequently rely on phone calls, PDFs, messaging platforms, and in-person conversations to conduct business.

Ruegg believes AI can instead function as a support layer that helps organize information, identify patterns in buyer preferences, and automate background processes without disrupting the interpersonal relationships that define the market itself. According to him, that support becomes increasingly important as galleries and luxury businesses attempt to connect with younger generations of collectors who often expect more tailored and digitally enabled experiences.

Trevor Ruegg

Industry research reflects some of the broader operational pressures affecting galleries and dealers globally. 38% of dealers reported lower profits in 2025 despite the broader market recovery, reinforcing ongoing concerns about operational sustainability in the sector.

According to McGuire, many businesses within the sector remain heavily dependent on manual administrative processes tied to customer relationship management, invoicing, shipping coordination, and client communication. From his standpoint, reducing that operational burden creates measurable business value because sales professionals can dedicate more time to building relationships and guiding collectors through purchases.

“The people within this industry are passionate about what they do,” McGuire explains. “If technology can give them more time to focus on clients and less time on repetitive operational work, then it strengthens the experience for everyone involved.”

Art Technology Holdings also sees long-term potential in helping collectors receive recommendations that align more closely with their historical preferences, lifestyle interests, and purchasing behavior. According to Ruegg, the broader objective is to create more relevant and efficient interactions across categories that include fine art, jewelry, watches, luxury goods, and other collectibles.

For the company, the larger conversation surrounding AI within the art world may ultimately depend on preserving it through tools designed around the realities of how the industry actually operates rather than replacing expertise. As Taste continues to develop, Art Technology Holdings appears focused on positioning technology as a way to strengthen human connection within collecting culture rather than distancing the industry from it.