Sotheby's

Sotheby's integrated an AI-powered image recognition and recommendation system after acquiring the startup Thread Genius in January 2018. The system analyzes artwork images and recommends visually similar works to collectors based on their taste preferences.

Thread Genius was a startup specializing in taste-based image recognition and recommendation technologies, using deep learning techniques and artificial neural networks originally developed for the fashion industry. After the acquisition, its team was embedded at Sotheby's headquarters in New York to build an AI-based recommendation engine for the auction house, working alongside the Sotheby's Mei Moses database of over 50,000 repeat auction sales. The stated goal was to help match objects, individual preferences, and price points more efficiently, improving client experience and expanding access to collectors at all price points.

Sotheby's offered AI-generated artworks for sale at auction, including a painting by the humanoid robot Ai-Da and works by the autonomous AI artist Botto, positioning itself as a marketplace for art produced using artificial intelligence algorithms.

In November 2024, Sotheby's New York sold 'A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing' (2024), a mixed-media canvas created by Ai-Da Robot — a humanoid robot that paints using cameras in its eyes, AI algorithms, and a robotic arm — for $1,084,800, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $120,000–$180,000. In October 2024, Sotheby's also hosted 'Exorbitant Stage,' an exhibition and sale dedicated to Botto, an autonomous AI artist that generates its own prompts and images without human intervention, which generated $351,600 in sales. These events marked Sotheby's first time offering works attributed to AI-driven robotic or autonomous systems as the primary 'artist.'

Sotheby's uses the Sotheby's Mei Moses database, acquired in 2016, to analyze art market performance against other asset classes by tracking price changes of the same artworks across repeated sales. This tool provides data-driven insights to collectors and internal specialists.

The Mei Moses Art Indices, renamed Sotheby's Mei Moses after acquisition, track repeat sales of over 45,000 objects in eight collecting categories, updated with approximately 4,000 new repeat sales each year. The methodology compares the investment performance of art against other asset classes and measures the impact of macroeconomic forces on the art market. It provides objective, verifiable market data to complement Sotheby's human specialists and to offer collectors analysis of overall market trends, individual artist trends, and consignment timing insights.