AI for Culture: Interview with Emanuela Totaro

For our DEEP DIVE column, we had the pleasure of speaking with Emanuela Totaro, Secretary General of the Kainòn Foundation ETS. With her, we explored the vision that led to the creation of DiPA Tool, the digital instrument that helps museums design accessible, fast, and sustainable experiences.

Can you tell us about the process that led to the creation of DiPA Tool?

DiPA Tool was born out of a deep research and design journey launched in 2022 by the Kainòn Foundation as part of the project “TOWARDS a Museum of the Future.” It is the result of an intense interdisciplinary dialogue involving experts in technology, accessibility, museum professionals, and researchers. These encounters allowed us to create a conceptual map on the crucial themes of digital accessibility in museums, which then became the foundation for the tool’s development.

From there, a clear need for museums emerged: navigating guidelines, regulations, and technological solutions. Often, the lack of in-house expertise and the fragmentation of resources create a concrete risk of investing in digital projects that are not inclusive, with high adaptation costs and missed opportunities for the public. DiPA Tool was designed precisely to address this challenge.

How does DiPA Tool meet these needs?

The tool is designed to be immediate and practical. It is free, cloud-based, and optimized for mobile use. It guides professionals through a questionnaire-checklist, assigns an accessibility rating to the project, and in just a few seconds generates personalized suggestions and an infographic. All of this is possible thanks to a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) model anchored to a curated scientific bibliography. In this way, the tool provides concrete operational support, without ever replacing specialized consultancy.

Artificial Intelligence is an integral part of the tool: how do you assess its impact, especially in terms of accessibility and simplification?

AI has a huge impact, reducing the cognitive load on operators. It can transform a mass of guidelines into synthetic, contextual feedback, speeding up self-assessment and making the process replicable by anyone, without barriers. For the Foundation, our “controlled AI” approach through RAG is crucial to avoid hallucinations or biases, aligning every suggestion with internationally recognized standards.

What are the relevant technical aspects of the project and the main functions of AI?

Our strategy is based on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), which ensures the reliability of the suggestions. The generation is “controlled” because the system compares user responses with a scientific bibliography we selected, producing the report only from reliable sources. To maximize precision, we divided the work into four RAG inferences—Design, Target & Stakeholders, Technologies, and Barriers—each powered by dedicated sub-bibliographies.

This project was born from intense co-design with Dot Beyond, launched after we defined DiPA’s conceptual map. The continuity of the collaboration, ranging from theoretical discussions to practical implementation, ensured optimal work. It was a formative experience in which the project’s representative for the Foundation, Isabella Ducros, worked closely with Dot’s experts, accompanying developers through all stages of testing, prompt modification, and response quality evaluation.

What has been the user feedback?

The LuBeC 2024 workshop and the ICOM Learning Center 2025 confirmed the ease of use, speed, and accuracy of the reports. From the feedback questionnaires, 100% of participants stated that DiPA Tool truly improves digital museum design and that they would use it for continuous monitoring.

How do you envision DiPA Tool evolving in the coming years?

Our goal is to consolidate the tool and expand its impact. We want to foster a stronger knowledge community around the tool, broaden its application to new cultural domains such as archives and libraries, and ensure continuous updates of the RAG sources.

What added value does digital innovation bring to public decision-making processes?

Digital innovation can transform public decision-making processes by making them more transparent, inclusive, and efficient. Tools like DiPA Tool offer three key benefits: evidence-based decisions, informed participation, and greater efficiency and traceability. All of this enables public administration to overcome habitual logic and guide decisions toward effectiveness and continuous improvement.

If you had to sum up the project in a key phrase, what would it be?

“DiPA Tool: the AI compass guiding museums toward truly accessible digital experiences.”