Augmented reality is changing the way we visit museums: from the Louvre to Roblox avatars

If for decades museum mediation relied on labels, audio guides, and textual apparatus, today cultural institutions are experimenting with languages that speak the grammar of the digital: three-dimensional reconstructions, animations, immersive storytelling, even game-like dynamics. And this often happens through augmented reality, because it allows digital content to be overlaid onto the perception of the real world, creating the effect of “bringing back to life” figures from the past and revealing images, colors, and stories that are no longer visible to the naked eye.

More and more often, when entering a museum, visitors are invited to activate a device and frame an object. Yet this is not simply a technological upgrade. What is at stake is broader: rethinking the relationship between visitor and artwork, making the experience more experiential, participatory, and intuitive.

Pioneering studies such as those by Sylvia Sylaiou and Anastasia Damala in the late 2000s had already identified the potential of augmented reality as an interpretive tool for cultural heritage, capable of restoring lost historical contexts or making complex objects legible through digital visualizations. Since then the field has grown rapidly: today there are hundreds of AR applications dedicated to museums, and the scientific literature examines their effects on learning, public engagement, and exhibition design. Not to mention that a form of “augmentation” has existed in museums for decades: the audio guide.

One of the most recent and significant projects in this direction comes from the Louvre Museum, which in 2026 launched—together with Snapchat—an augmented reality visitor experience titled The Incredible Unknowns of the Louvre, with the aim of bringing to light works often overlooked by the general public.

Its operation is surprisingly simple. Next to a number of selected works—including the Code of Hammurabi, the bust of Akhenaten, the Kore of Samos, and the Portrait of Anne of Cleves painted by Hans Holbein the Younger—visitors find a QR code. By simply scanning it with a smartphone, the artwork comes to life on the screen through the camera. The application developed by Snap’s AR Studio, in collaboration with the museum’s curators, allows lost colors to be reconstructed, technical details to be visualized, and iconographic elements to be animated. The Greek Kore regains its ancient polychromy; the decorations of Bernard Palissy’s Renaissance basin seem to move through space; the famous Babylonian code becomes readable through an interactive translation.

In this case, augmented reality works as a kind of prosthesis of vision. It does not replace the real object, but reveals dimensions that time has erased or made difficult to interpret. It is a form of mediation that does not invade the museum space with new display apparatus, but activates directly on the visitor’s personal device.

Nothing entirely new: in 2023 Snapchat had already collaborated with the Paris museum on Egypt Augmented, a project devoted to the Egyptian collections. Here too, the idea was to restore what can no longer be seen. Many sculptures and bas-reliefs from ancient Egypt, now perceived as monochrome surfaces, were originally covered in vivid colors. Through augmented reality, visitors could observe these works in their original appearance, with pigments and decorations reconstructed on the basis of scientific research.

The experience did not stop in the museum galleries. Snap also created photographic filters inspired by the artworks, which users could employ on social media. The result was a curious extension of the visit: ancient heritage entered the visual languages of digital platforms, blending with the culture of selfies and sharing.

If the Louvre mainly uses augmented reality as an interpretive tool, other museums have chosen to explore its more playful dimension. In 2023 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York launched the app Met Replica, developed together with Verizon. The idea is as simple as it is effective: allowing visitors to virtually wear objects from the collection.

Through augmented reality, a fifteenth-century Japanese armor, the hat depicted in Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Straw Hat, or the snakes of Canova’s Medusa can be transformed into digital accessories for online avatars. Museum objects thus become elements of personalization in virtual worlds, particularly on the Roblox platform.

It is an interesting example of the gamification of heritage. Some functions of the app unlock only inside the museum, encouraging physical visits, while others allow the experience to continue remotely. The result is a narrative that moves between exhibition space and digital universe. Yet a question remains open: to what extent do these technologies truly expand the experience of the artwork—and when do they instead risk replacing it with another layer of digital mediation?

Studies published in recent years show that the number of AR applications in cultural heritage has grown rapidly, especially after 2020. At the same time, researchers’ attention has shifted from the mere technological effect to the quality of the experience: interface design, interaction ergonomics, and integration with museum storytelling. In other words, augmented reality is gradually becoming a fully fledged narrative infrastructure.

Opening image: Met Replica, the app developed by the Metropolitan of Art in New York together with Verizon