To celebrate Salvador Dalí’s 120th birthday, we connected one of the greatest artists of the last century with an audience increasingly focused on the present and its emerging technologies.

Using a combination of different AI platforms—including GPT-4 Turbo and Multilingual v2 —trained on Dalí’s works, texts and interviews, we were able to re-create not only Dalí’s voice but also his style and personality. We packaged all this high-end technology into something extremely lo-fi: a rotary phone that’s a re-creation of Dalí’s iconic Lobster Phone.

As museum patrons approach the Ask Dalí installation, they can now pick up our Lobster Phone and engage in conversation with the surrealist genius. Salvador Dalí now answers their questions in real time, as if the artist had been brought back to life.

Ask Dalí made its debut at SXSW, becoming one of the event’s most anticipated panels, called “AI and the Future of Creativity.” It was an instant success, drawing long queues of audience members who were eager to talk with the surrealist genius.

We led PR and helped the experience earn 1.5 billion PR impressions as Ask Dalí garnered global attention. Headlines ran across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and it was featured in major news outlets such as Fox News, NPR, Forbes, Inc. magazine and Smithsonian magazine. Our digital re-creation of Salvador Dalí has been the topic of numerous interviews, including even a podcast.

In the week following the launch, the museum saw a significant surge in ticket sales, with Ask Dalí attracting long lines of patrons who were eager to interact with the digital Salvador Dalí. Today, more than 50,000 calls have been made to the deceased artist.