Interactive AI experiences for museums and galleries
Your visitors will talk with history.
We create installations that bring characters and stories from your collection to life. From the first idea to a finished experience. At a scale and budget that works for you.
Museums have unique stories. But getting them to visitors is getting harder. People are used to social media, games and interactive content — and traditional formats struggle to compete. That makes every experience that truly draws a visitor in all the more valuable: they spend far more time with it, remember it, and talk about it.
Case study
The brief sounded simple — what if visitors could actually talk to Napoleon? Not a chatbot. Not a series of pre-recorded videos. What if they could have a real face-to-face conversation with Napoleon? No waiting, natural interaction, minimal running costs.
An audience with the Emperor
We didn’t approach this project as a technology implementation, but as a directorial task. The goal was to create an experience where you feel like you’re standing face to face with one of the greatest (not by height) Frenchmen, and he’s talking with you. He has a personality, an accent, and treats you as his subject. And of course — he answers your questions.
His own personality and voice
We built Napoleon’s persona together with historians, drawing from scholarly books, letters and museum collections. Visitors aren’t talking to a “wikipedia”, but to a fully developed, three-dimensional character based on a real man. Napoleon speaks Czech, English and German, with a light French accent and a range of emotions: melancholy and anger alike.
A living image, not a photograph
It’s not just about the voice and the thoughts Napoleon articulates. Visitors stand before a fully animated Napoleon and watch him as if he were genuinely standing beside them. In every language, Napoleon has perfect lipsync, gestures expressively and even reacts to the surrounding exhibits.
A focus on a genuine experience
We knew visitors would try to outsmart Napoleon. So he’s designed to handle all kinds of situations with charm. Whether visitors provoke him or ask inappropriate questions, Napoleon responds with imperial elegance — ensuring they leave with a smile, even if they’ve just been dismissed.
01
Voice → text
The visitor speaks, their voice is converted to text
02
Text → response
Napoleon responds based on his character and knowledge base
03
Response → voice
A voice with a French accent and the right emotions is generated
04
Voice → face
The facial expression and lipsync are animated
05
Face → body
Everything comes together into a single audiovisual output
What the visitor experiences as a fluid conversation is actually a sequence of five chained AI models. Everything is orchestrated in real time — no noticeable delay and no dependency on expensive external services.
“The best technology is the one that doesn’t feel like technology at all, because you’re too absorbed in the interaction itself.”
the principle behind every installation we build
In the press
Options
A fully animated character is the most ambitious path. But an interactive experience can take many forms. It depends on your story, your space and your budget. Here are three tiers to start from:
Voice guide with character
A character visitors can talk to by voice or text. No complex animation — the focus is on personality and content.
- → Fast to build, lower budget
- → Ideal for a pilot project or smaller exhibition
- → Already speaks every major world language
Talking portrait
A historical figure on screen who reacts and speaks with facial expressions and accent. Visually compelling, technically lighter than full animation.
- → A strong visual impact
- → Great for photo and video outputs
- → Visual style tailored precisely to your brief
Fully animated avatar
A living image with full body movement, emotions and environmental awareness. The most powerful experience and a media magnet — just like Napoleon at Slavkov.
- → Full body and facial animation
- → Reacts to surrounding exhibits
- → Maximum "wow" factor and PR reach
Who we are
At Brainz Studios we bring together strategy, design and technology to deliver innovative solutions with real-world impact. Over more than 20 years in the industry we have worked with a wide range of cultural institutions — from small venues to the largest in the Czech Republic and across Europe.
Sounds interesting?
We’d love to connect, whether you have a specific idea or just a question.
martina@brainz-studios.cz