Meet Artzy: Your New Guide to Pittsburgh’s Arts Scene
If you’ve visited the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s website recently, you may have noticed a small orange voice bubble in the bottom right corner of your screen that opens with a simple greeting: “Chat with Artzy!” That’s the pilot of our new digital concierge, and we’re excited to finally share it with you.
Artzy is a free and multilingual digital concierge designed to help artists, arts organizations, and arts patrons get answers to their arts-related questions, any time of day or night. Instead of digging through our website or waiting for an email reply, you can type a question into Artzy and instantly learn more about artistic opportunities, events, membership info, professional resources, and more.
What is a digital concierge exactly? Think of Artzy as a responsive, human-powered chatbot, trained by the Arts Council, for our community. It doesn’t replace a conversation with a real person, but it can guide you through our offerings and answer questions about the region’s arts and culture ecosystem.
Over the past year, our staff has been quietly training Artzy behind the scenes. We gathered the questions we hear most often (“How can I expand my visibility and reach as an artist?” “How can I become an Arts Council member?” “Where can I find legal help as an artist?”) and paired them with clear, plain-language answers and links.
Artzy doesn’t just talk about the Arts Council’s work. It’s a tool meant to help support our entire creative sector.
"Our goal is to make information about opportunities, resources, and the arts ecosystem more accessible to everyone."
To bring Artzy to life, we partnered with SkillBuilder.io, a Pittsburgh-based technology company launched out of Carnegie Mellon University. They helped us build a tool rooted in the knowledge and lived experience of our staff and the people we serve, with the flexibility to grow and improve over time as more people use it.
“Our goal is to make information about opportunities, resources, and the arts ecosystem more accessible to everyone,” says Patrick Fisher, CEO of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. “This new tool is simply another way for us to do that. It is a complement to, not a replacement for, the human connections and conversations that are at the heart of our work. We see new technology as a bridge to help artists and organizations get timely answers and support, so our staff can focus more deeply on building relationships and strengthening the cultural sector.”
That balance is important to us. Artzy is here to make things easier, not less personal. We know a digital concierge can’t replace a thoughtful one-on-one conversation or a relationship built over years. But it can help you find information quickly, or locate the right staff contact without having to guess.
Behind the scenes, Artzy also supports our staff. By handling frequently asked questions and pointing people toward existing information, it can save our team significant time. That frees us up to focus on work that requires more human insight: building relationships, developing initiatives, meeting with artists and organizations, and strengthening the region’s cultural infrastructure.
“We’re thrilled to partner with the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council to introduce AI that enhances human potential rather than replacing it,” says Adam Paulisick, CEO of SkillBuilder.io. “At SkillBuilder.io, we believe technology should empower organizations to make a bigger impact while freeing staff to focus on the work that truly requires their lived experience and expertise.”
Because Artzy is currently in pilot mode, it’s still very much a work in progress — and that’s by design. The more people who use it, the better it will get. This is where you come in: we’d love for you to be one of Artzy’s early users.
As you explore, we’d be grateful if you’d share your experience with us. Did Artzy answer your question well? Was there something it didn’t understand? Did it point you somewhere unexpected in a good way — or not so good way? Your feedback will help us identify gaps, fix confusing answers, and add new questions to its “brain” over time. (You can share your feedback directly in the Artzy chat or send us an email!)
If Artzy can’t answer something yet, we’ll add it to our to-do list. We’ll review the questions it couldn’t handle and use them to guide future updates, so the next person who asks that same question gets a better response.
We invite you to try it out: visit our website, look for the Artzy chat window in the bottom right corner of your screen, and ask a question. See what it can do, and then tell us what you think.
