AI is not just a tool; it’s the engine of tomorrow’s economy and culture. By 2032, AI is expected to contribute $15.7 trillion globally, reshaping industries and elevating innovation to unprecedented levels (Statista). From automating complex tasks to enabling creative breakthroughs, AI is redefining how businesses operate and consumers interact.
Statista highlights a staggering 54% annual growth rate in the global AI market, underscoring its exponential trajectory. Companies embracing AI today will become the architects of the future.
Memory and Identity: Preserving the Past
AI-powered tools like "Memory Shots" revolutionize memory preservation by enabling dementia patients to generate photorealistic images of cherished moments. These tools foster reminiscence and connection, transforming memory into a tangible and shareable resource. Similarly, emotional AI assistants like Ebb guide users through self-reflection, helping them navigate emotions and experiences with greater clarity.
Kodak helps dementia patients relive their memories
Kodak introduced Memory Shots, an AI-powered tool designed to support dementia patients through photo reminiscence therapy. Patients and caregivers can describe a memory and generate photorealistic images that resemble photos taken with Kodak cameras from that era. Patients can edit the photo until it accurately reflects the moment they are trying to describe. By recreating moments that were never captured on film, Memory Shots fosters longer, more detailed conversations, aiding memory recall and improving patient wellbeing. Developed in partnership with Belgian dementia organizations, the tool launched in October 2024.
Anthropological Insight: Memory has always been a cornerstone of identity, both individual and collective. These technologies echo the role of oral traditions and rituals in preserving cultural narratives, embedding AI as a co-creator of memory and identity.
AI chatbot offers personalized mental health support
Headspace debuted Ebb, a gen artificial intelligence-powered chatbot meant to offer consumers individualized mental health care. Designed by data scientists and clinical psychologists, Ebb guides users toward pertinent material within the app by use of motivational interviewing to enable reflection on events or expression of appreciation. Ebb can send consumers in trouble to emergency services, even though it offers no medical guidance or diagnosis.
Anthropological Insight: These case studies redefine Erving Goffman’s "presentation of self" by embedding empathy into AI systems, blurring the boundaries between genuine and simulated emotional interactions.
Creativity and Cultural Production
Generative AI tools such as "Movie Gen" and DALL-E are democratizing artistic creation. These platforms allow users to produce videos, images, and soundscapes with simple prompts, breaking barriers to participation in cultural production. Partnerships with the film industry showcase AI’s ability to blend human creativity with algorithmic precision, challenging traditional notions of authorship.
Meta AI model can generate video with sound
Movie Gen
Developed by Meta, Movie Gen is a gen AI-powered movie tool enabling content creators to create custom videos and adjust current ones using text cues. With thirty billion parameters, the model can create up to sixteen-second movies at sixteen frames per second. It guarantees coherent stories by knowing topics and camera movements. Movie Gen can also edit videos, changing styles or adding objects, which formerly called for sophisticated knowledge of tools like Premier Pro. Additionally included in the application is a 13 billion parameter audio model that can produce synced sounds for up to 45 seconds. Revealed in October 2024, the instrument was not first publicly accessible. Under a trial program, Meta will collaborate with creators and directors; wider release is scheduled for 2025.
Anthropological Insight: As AI becomes a collaborator in creativity, it resonates with McCracken’s theory of culture as a process of continuous reinvention. These tools empower marginalized voices, reshaping the dynamics of cultural production and storytelling.
Responsive Commerce and Retail Innovation
Retail is embracing AI to craft more personalized and culturally relevant experiences. For example, AI-powered design influenced the creation of the Bibingka Latte, a festive Filipino drink that integrates local traditions with global innovation. Meanwhile, advancements in computer vision and personalized recommendations are transforming retail into a co-creative space where consumers actively shape their experiences.
Manila coffee roaster partners with Google Gemini on a limited-edition, AI-generated latte
Starting in September, the Christmas season lasts the whole length of the 'ber' months in the Philippines. Manila-based cafe and coffee roaster Commune teamed up with Google Philippines on a limited edition Bibingka Latte to mark the unofficial but generally embraced start of the festive season. Inspired by a classic Filipino Christmas treat, the espresso and steamed milk drink is topped with shredded queso de bola and salted egg and garnished with burnt banana leaf. Gemini, Google's generative artificial intelligence tool, helped produce Bibingka Latte. Gemini created several cocktail ideas that Commune's baristas polished. Google also taught Commune employees artificial intelligence techniques to enable them create unique new drinks.
Anthropological Insight: Retail spaces are becoming sites of cultural exchange, reflecting Malinowski’s concept of kula, where goods and experiences carry symbolic meaning. This transformation highlights the evolving rituals of consumption in a hyper-digital world.
Spirituality and Modern Rituals
AI-powered nanochapels in Poland offer private, digital spaces for worship, reflecting a fusion of sacred traditions with modern technology. These chapels support intimate spiritual practices in public spaces, illustrating how AI adapts to the evolving needs of faith communities.
AI-powered nanochapel provides round-the-clock worship
The Polish Parish of Łacina debuted a novel spiritual concept called "nanochapels," tiny, AI-powered chapels for intimate religious experiences in public areas, Q3 2024. Through digital interfaces that allow prayers, scriptures, and times of contemplation, nanochapels let users participate in faith rituals. Designed by a Polish firm, the chapels enhance personal religion experiences—especially for people who travel. Integrating technology into spiritual life is part of a larger movement to serve consumers looking for easily available, modern means of nourishing their beliefs.
Anthropological Insight: The integration of technology into rituals echoes Malinowski’s observations on the adaptability of sacred practices. Nanochapels symbolize how faith evolves in response to societal and technological shifts.
Art and Cultural Dialogues
The upcoming Dataland Museum in Los Angeles showcases the creative potential of AI in art. By exploring AI-generated works and ethical practices, the museum invites dialogue about originality, creativity, and the cultural role of machines in human expression.
First AI art museum explores the creative potential of machines
Artist Refik Anadol revealed in September 2024 the first artificial intelligence art museum, Dataland, will open. Focused on ethical AI methods, Dataland, which is set to launch in late 2025, will emphasize the junction of artificial intelligence and human ingenuity located in Los Angeles. Anadol and others will create AI-generated works for the museum, investigating the nascent discipline of AI art and supporting ethical and environmentally friendly AI growth. Dataland wants to demystify artificial intelligence by pushing artists to develop their own tools instead of depending just on already-existing technologies.
Anthropological Insight: This initiative reflects the transformative power of consumption, as described by McCracken, where AI-generated art fosters new cultural dialogues and challenges traditional frameworks of artistic production.
AI as a Cultural Participant in Human Evolution
AI has transcended its role as a technological innovation to become an active participant in the cultural and social frameworks that define human life. It is reconfiguring how we preserve memory, produce art, engage in commerce, and navigate spirituality. Through this integration, AI reflects key anthropological themes: the ritualization of technology in daily life, the preservation and reinterpretation of collective memory, and the negotiation of identity in an increasingly digitized world. These shifts resonate with Goffman’s dramaturgical approach to identity and Appadurai’s concept of technoscapes, where technology becomes both a medium and a subject of cultural exchange.
In this context, AI is not a passive agent but a co-creator in the ongoing evolution of human societies. It facilitates new forms of storytelling, redefines cultural norms, and bridges the global with the local, echoing Malinowski’s observations on the adaptability of rituals. By viewing AI through the lens of social anthropology, we can better understand its role in shaping how communities maintain their cultural resilience while embracing innovation. This perspective invites us to see AI not as a disruptor, but as a collaborator in humanity’s ongoing journey toward meaning and connection in a rapidly transforming world.
