Metagate participated in the Stelline Conference 2026, one of the leading Italian events dedicated to the world of libraries, archives, and knowledge management.
Within the panel "Audiovisuals and Smart Libraries", organized by AVI – Associazione Videoteche e Mediateche Italiane, Marco Pizzini, alongside Antonio Barbato and representatives from CoMeta APS, contributed to a discussion on the role of Artificial Intelligence in the transformation of cultural archives.
At the heart of the debate were some fundamental questions: how will access to knowledge change in the era of AI? How can archives and libraries become more accessible, interconnected, and engaging? And what role can Mixed Reality and immersive technologies play in enhancing cultural heritage?
During the meeting, it emerged that Artificial Intelligence is already revolutionizing the way we catalog, organize, and consult information, documents, and audiovisual content. At the same time, speakers emphasized the importance of maintaining a humanistic vision of technology—one capable of putting people, rather than algorithms, at the center.
From this perspective comes the concept of Digital Humanism, promoted by CoMeta APS: an approach that views technological innovation as a tool to amplify knowledge, creativity, and relational skills, without losing sight of responsibility, ethics, and awareness.
For Metagate, this vision translates into developing Mixed Reality experiences on Meta Quest 3, where Artificial Intelligence, cultural content, and human interaction meet to create new ways of exploring archives, museums, and places of memory.
Smart Archives and Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is already changing the way we organize and consult knowledge. Thanks to generative models and semantic analysis tools, it is now possible to catalog large amounts of content, generate metadata, identify connections between documents, and make huge archives searchable through conversational interfaces.
During the panel, the case of RTVE Grapho was also presented—a platform developed by the audiovisual archive of the Spanish public television. Thanks to AI, it has transformed over 150,000 audiovisual resources into a navigable and interconnected knowledge network. The goal is not merely to preserve information. The goal is to make it alive, accessible, and usable.
Digital Humanism: Technology at the Service of People
Alongside the opportunities offered by AI, however, an equally important reflection emerged. As president of CoMeta APS, an association that studies the impact of technology on daily life, Antonio Barbato stressed the need to accompany innovation with an ethical and conscious approach. From this vision stems the concept of Digital Humanism, which CoMeta APS has been promoting for years.
The idea is simple: technology must be a tool at the service of people, and not the other way around. In a world increasingly defined by algorithms, automation, and artificially generated content, the responsibility of choices remains human. AI can support us, amplify our capabilities, and help us better understand the complexity of the world, but it cannot replace human judgment, ethics, and sensitivity.
How Metagate Uses Artificial Intelligence
At Metagate, Artificial Intelligence has also become an everyday tool. It is used for producing texts, images, videos, synthetic voices, technical documentation, software development, and prototyping. For us, AI does not represent the end goal of our work. It is a tool that allows us to accelerate production, expand creative possibilities, and develop richer, more engaging digital experiences. These experiences primarily take shape in Mixed Reality.
What Mixed Reality Is and Why It Differs from Virtual Reality
When discussing immersive technologies, people often tend to confuse Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality. Virtual Reality transports the user into a completely digital environment, separating them from the physical world. Mixed Reality, on the other hand, keeps the real space visible and integrates three-dimensional digital content into it. Objects, models, documents, characters, and information can appear directly in the surrounding environment and interact with it. Thanks to devices like Meta Quest 3 and the use of hand tracking, interaction happens naturally, without the need for joysticks or controllers.
This approach reduces many of the barriers traditionally associated with immersive technologies:
- less motion sickness;
- less disorientation;
- greater safety;
- greater accessibility;
- more intuitive learning.
For this reason, Metagate considers Mixed Reality to be one of the primary future interfaces for technologies such as AI, IoT, and Blockchain.
From Data to Experience: The Role of Mixed Reality in Archives
If Artificial Intelligence allows us to organize and understand knowledge, Mixed Reality can make it visible and tangible. This is where one of the most interesting opportunities for cultural heritage is born. Italy possesses one of the most important historical, artistic, and archival heritages in the world. However, much of this heritage is still subject to a passive form of enjoyment. The implicit rule is often: look but don't touch.
Mixed Reality allows us to overcome this limitation without physically intervening on the works. An object kept inside a display case can be accompanied by an interactive digital copy. A historical archive can become a navigable three-dimensional space. A photograph can open up an immersive narrative. A document can be linked to places, people, events, and historical reconstructions. A artwork can be explored in its details, its transformations, and its restorations. It is not about replacing physical heritage. It is about enriching it.
Cultural Heritage as Living Memory
For Metagate, the value of Mixed Reality applied to culture does not lie in the special effect. It lies in the capacity to make heritage more accessible, understandable, and engaging. In recent years, we have experimented with this approach in several projects. From the immersive journey CLAVIS developed for the Diocesan Museum of Brescia, to the experience dedicated to Torre Velasca for the Pasquinelli Foundation. In all these cases, technology is not the protagonist. The protagonist remains the cultural content. Technology is simply the language used to tell its story.
The Role of Metagate
For Metagate, enhancing cultural heritage through AI and Mixed Reality is not just a technological opportunity. It is a responsibility. The intersection of Artificial Intelligence, digital archives, and Mixed Reality opens up possibilities today that seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. Libraries, museums, archives, and places of memory can become alive, participatory, and interactive spaces. On this path, we continue to develop Mixed Reality experiences on Meta Quest 3, convinced that the future of culture will not just be digital. It will be immersive, accessible, and deeply human.
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