Through two ambitious new initiatives created by sub and VOLUME magazine at the Venice Architecture Biennale in Venice, artificial intelligence is for the first time changing the way we experience architecture. Your guides? Steve Bannon, AOC, a gondolier, and other unexpected people.

What if the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, titled Intelligent Natural Artificial Collective, could listen, learn, and respond in your language?

In Other Words, a radical audio guide by VOLUME magazine, and Spatial Intelligens, created by the award-winning Berlin-based studio sub, are two new companions that are currently live in Venice. 

Large language models (LLMs) are used in both projects to provide novel perspectives on seeing, navigating, and interpreting the exhibition. They represent a first: a significant international architecture show that is being actively transformed in real time by artificial intelligence. 

During the Biennale's opening in May of last year, a tiny experiment that used AI to create captions and summarize architect-submitted texts caught the public's attention. It raised significant queries, such as: Is authorship shifting due to AI? Since then, that experiment has grown into a more extensive study.

An AI-powered system called Spatial Intelligens, the first project, helps you navigate the Arsenale by identifying where you stop, what you skip, and what catches your eye. 

The application, which was created by Niklas Bildstein Zaar and his colleagues at Sub (who also designed this year's exhibition), reacts with links, analysis, and curatorial material based on your real path. A customized digital report of what you really saw, rather than what you were expected to see, is sent to you when you depart. Your path turns into a mirror reflecting your own curiosity.

"This is a project that redefines how exhibitions can think, feel, and respond," said Niklas Bildstein Zaar. 

"It is incredibly exciting to design a space that showcases architecture and actively participates in a living dialogue with it. We are grateful that our studio has been appointed by Carlo Ratti for this year’s Biennale Architettura. Spatial Intelligens encapsulates the spirit of the Biennale: architecture as a living, evolving system of intelligence, consciousness of materials, and collective experience," Zaar added.

The second project was created by the magazine VOLUME. They present In Other Words, an AI companion that speaks and reinterprets exhibition texts through 36 creative lenses. These include gondoliers, critical theorists, Steve Bannon-esque ideologues, AOC-style progressives, and even fictional or philosophical avatars.

The tool challenges the way authority, knowledge, and meaning are generated in cultural contexts by providing polyphonic, frequently provocative audio guides that were created using Claude Sonnet 4.

"This experiment is a simultaneously playful and serious attempt at understanding how AI is and will be radically reshaping our words and stories," commented Stephan Petermann, VOLUME editor. 

"It confronts us with both AI’s and our own tropes and conventions. It bursts some of the bubbles of archetypal writing in design exhibitions by condensing, simplifying, but also intellectually overtaking an initial premise, or adding more vantage points. It explores the sensitivities of what it means to publicly share often complicated or complex ideas with a multitude of audiences," Petermann added.

The core of Carlo Ratti's curatorial concept is these instruments. They work together to transform the Biennale into a living laboratory rather than a static exhibition. 

From the experimental installations to the GENS Public Programme, which has been attracting thousands of visitors to an evolving, interactive dialogue, this metamorphosis is evident throughout the exhibition.

"The Biennale Architettura has long been a mirror of the profession. This year, we asked: could it also become a tool?," commented Carlo Ratti, co-founder of CRA–Carlo Ratti Associati and director of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. 

"Many projects in the exhibition can be considered a living lab. During the Biennale’s development, AI was already used to summarize texts—but now, it becomes a true participant, challenging how we think, exhibit, and share architectural ideas. It invites us to rethink authorship and curatorship," Ratti added.

Image © VOLUME

The 19th International Architecture Exhibition takes place from 10 May to 23 November 2025 at the Giardini, the Arsenale and various venues in Venice, Italy. 

Find out all exhibition news on WAC's Venice Architecture Biennale page. 

All images: Spatial Intelligens, Concept, AI Systems Architecture, and Development by sub, In Other Words by VOLUME, a collaboration between Archie and Nieuwe Instituut - courtesy of CRA. 

> via CRA 

AI artificial intelligence Carlo Ratti exhibition installation LLMs Venice Architecture Biennale