Chosen to support a landmark reopening

When the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (MFA Bilbao) set out to rethink its visitor experience for the reopening of its transformed building, it chose Smartify as its digital partner. The new custom web app launched alongside the museum's reopening and a major programme of exhibitions and activities marking the completion of Agravitas, the refurbishment and extension project by Norman Foster and Luis María Uriarte.

We were honoured to be selected for a project of this significance. MFA Bilbao's ambition was clear: a new kind of visitor experience that is innovative, accessible to as many people as possible, and powered by AI. The resulting multilingual guide brings four custom audio tours, four languages and more than 500 stops per language together in one mobile-first experience on visitors' own devices. It was delivered in just six weeks.

Four tours, four languages, 45 galleries

The guide offers four custom audio tours: Ancient, Modern, Contemporary and Architecture. Every tour is available in English, Spanish, Basque and French, so visitors choose their route and language from the moment they open the guide.

Behind the launch was a significant content operation. The museum wanted visitors to be able to learn about as many objects as possible, in the language of their choice. The result is more than 500 stops in each of the four languages, spread across 45 galleries, with around eight hours of audio per language. That breadth means the guide works for every kind of visitor: those who want a structured tour, those looking for a specific object, and those who prefer to explore at their own pace.

A numbered audio guide, reimagined for visitors' own devices

The guide combines the clarity of a traditional numbered audio guide with the flexibility of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Visitors can follow a tour, enter a stop number on the digital keypad, or explore nested tracks that link gallery introductions to individual artworks. It feels instantly familiar to anyone who has used an audio guide, with no hardware to hand out, charge or maintain.

Built for scale behind the scenes

Delivering a project of this scale required close coordination across content, production and delivery teams. Smartify managed multilingual content preparation, AI-supported translation and audio generation, spreadsheet preparation, object uploads, API integration and dashboard training.

The Smartify team also worked closely with MFA Bilbao staff on numbered signage and QR codes, connecting the physical gallery experience with the digital guide. The result feels simple for visitors, while handling a large and complex content structure behind the scenes.

Built at speed, without compromising on quality

With six weeks from kick-off to launch, speed was central from day one. What made that timeline possible was extensive use of AI for translation and audio production. But speed was never the only goal: each language needed to sound natural and true to its own character, from Basque to French, rather than read like a copy of the English.

Smartify and the MFA Bilbao team worked in a rapid, iterative cycle, generating, reviewing and refining content together until it met the museum's standards. The process tested the limits of what the technology can do today, and sets a new benchmark for how AI can be used in museum interpretation. For MFA Bilbao, the guide offers a new way to connect visitors with the collection. For Smartify, it shows what a platform built for speed, quality and multilingual storytelling at scale can deliver.

Watch this space

MFA Bilbao is just the beginning. A new wave of AI capabilities is coming to the Smartify platform, designed to help museums create, translate and voice content faster than ever, while keeping curators and content teams firmly in control of quality and tone.

We'll also be sharing what we learned on this project: practical lessons and best practice for museums looking to use AI in multilingual content production. That includes structuring source content well from the start, building human review into every stage, treating each language on its own terms, and working iteratively with the museum team rather than in a single handover.

Want to be among the first to hear more, or to explore what AI could do for your own visitor experience? Get in touch with the Smartify team.