Research Document No. 12 Towards Intelligent Archival Ecosystems How Artificial Intelligence can strengthen—not replace—Archival Science

 

PDS & Ged/A | Research Notes

Research Document No. 12

Towards Intelligent Archival Ecosystems

How Artificial Intelligence can strengthen—not replace—Archival Science

25 June 2026

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🌎 Open Science

The PDS & Ged/A Research Notes are part of an ongoing Open Science initiative dedicated to documenting the evolution of our research programme in Digital Archival Science. Rather than presenting finished conclusions, these documents openly share emerging concepts, evolving hypotheses and future research agendas, inviting the international archival community to participate in the collective construction of knowledge.

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📚 What have we learned so far?

Over the past year our research programme has gradually evolved into a coherent scientific agenda.

We proposed Systemic Digital Preservation as an institutional rather than purely technological approach.

We introduced the concept of Digital Archival Ecosystems, recognising that archival records exist within complex networks of people, institutions, policies, infrastructures and technologies.

We revisited the OAIS Reference Model through an archival perspective.

We expanded the meaning of the Chain of Archival Digital Custody.

We explored the convergence between the European archival tradition, the iSchools movement and Computational Archival Science.

More recently we investigated intelligent agents, Archival Algorithmic Governance and the future education of archivists.

Today another question naturally emerges.

How should intelligent agents become part of archival ecosystems without compromising authenticity, provenance, context, institutional accountability or public trust?

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🔄 How our research question evolved

Our first question was relatively straightforward.

How should digital records be preserved?

Later we asked:

How should authenticity be maintained?

How can trust be preserved?

How should intelligent agents be governed?

How should future archivists be educated?

Today our research question changes once again.

How can Intelligent Archival Ecosystems be designed to expand human capabilities while preserving the fundamental principles of Archival Science?

Perhaps this represents the next stage of digital transformation.

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Intelligent agents may never replace archivists

Public discussions surrounding Artificial Intelligence often assume that intelligent systems will replace human professionals.

Archival Science invites a different perspective.

Much of archival work depends upon contextual interpretation.

Institutional understanding.

Diplomatic analysis.

Appraisal.

Documentary evidence.

Professional accountability.

These dimensions cannot easily be reduced to computational pattern recognition.

Perhaps intelligent agents will not replace archivists.

Perhaps they will become collaborators.

Supporting repetitive activities.

Enhancing information retrieval.

Strengthening preservation workflows.

Facilitating access.

While archivists remain responsible for authenticity, provenance, institutional memory and documentary trust.

This hypothesis deserves careful empirical investigation.

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📓 Laboratory Notes

June 2026

During one seminar meeting someone made a simple but thought-provoking observation.

"Perhaps we have been imagining intelligent agents as replacements, when we should instead imagine them as collaborators within archival ecosystems."

That single sentence reshaped our discussion.

We stopped asking:

"Who will be replaced?"

Instead, we began asking:

"How can humans and intelligent agents collaborate while preserving authenticity, accountability and public trust?"

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🏛️ A Conceptual Proposal

Intelligent Archival Ecosystems

We have begun exploring the hypothesis that Intelligent Archival Ecosystems represent the natural evolution of Digital Archival Ecosystems.

Within these environments, people, archival records, institutions, metadata, computational models, intelligent agents, preservation infrastructures and governance policies continuously interact.

Importantly, the intelligence of these ecosystems does not reside exclusively in Artificial Intelligence.

It emerges from the interaction between archival principles, institutional governance, technological infrastructure and human judgement.

This proposal remains provisional and is intended to stimulate international discussion.

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Beyond automation

Much of today's discussion surrounding Artificial Intelligence in archives focuses primarily on automation.

Optical Character Recognition.

Automatic metadata extraction.

Classification.

Semantic indexing.

Document description.

These applications are valuable.

Yet they may represent only the first stage of transformation.

Future Intelligent Archival Ecosystems may integrate:

Systemic Digital Preservation.

Records Management.

Algorithmic Governance.

Privacy protection.

Transparency.

Active access policies.

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).

Knowledge graphs.

Long-term preservation.

Citizen participation.

Institutional memory.

Perhaps the greatest challenge is not automation itself.

It is designing trustworthy institutional environments.

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💡 One of our research findings

The more our research progresses, the more evident it becomes that Artificial Intelligence depends fundamentally upon the quality of archival information.

Reliable metadata.

Preserved context.

Documented provenance.

PREMIS preservation events.

High-quality archival description.

Without these foundations, even the most advanced AI systems become significantly less reliable.

Perhaps Archival Science is not simply applying Artificial Intelligence.

Perhaps it provides part of the epistemological infrastructure upon which trustworthy AI depends.

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Digital sovereignty and open infrastructures

Another topic has gradually become central to our discussions.

Public archives, universities and memory institutions require sustainable and sovereign digital infrastructures.

Open-source environments such as Archivematica, AtoM, local AI platforms such as Ollama, vector databases and Retrieval-Augmented Generation architectures provide promising alternatives.

Not because technology itself is the objective.

But because technological choices influence institutional autonomy, long-term preservation, transparency and public accountability.

Technology should therefore remain subordinate to archival governance—not the opposite.

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⚖️ An Archival Dilemma

Suppose an intelligent agent recommends the disposal of archival records after analysing millions of previous appraisal decisions.

Should that recommendation ever become sufficient to justify disposal?

Or must documentary appraisal always remain a human institutional responsibility?

Perhaps this dilemma will accompany Archival Science for decades.

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The invisible infrastructure of trust

Throughout this research we gradually realised that authenticity, provenance, the Chain of Archival Digital Custody, Systemic Digital Preservation, privacy protection, transparency and Archival Algorithmic Governance are not isolated concepts.

Together they form what we increasingly describe as the invisible infrastructure of trust.

Most citizens will never directly observe this infrastructure.

Yet it silently supports governmental legitimacy, institutional accountability and public confidence.

Perhaps this represents one of the greatest contributions Archival Science can offer to digital society.

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🔬 An unexpected outcome of our seminar

Initially we expected significant differences between the European archival tradition and Computational Archival Science.

Instead, we found remarkable convergence.

When guided by archival principles, both traditions ultimately prioritise:

Authenticity.

Provenance.

Context.

Accountability.

Transparency.

Long-term preservation.

Institutional trust.

Perhaps this convergence represents one of the greatest opportunities for Archival Science during the coming decade.

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Archivists as ecosystem architects

Perhaps one of the profession's most significant transformations lies here.

Archivists increasingly become architects of documentary ecosystems.

They participate in Artificial Intelligence governance.

Metadata architecture.

Data governance.

Digital preservation infrastructures.

Transparency policies.

Protection of citizens' rights.

Algorithmic accountability.

Without abandoning their archival identity.

The archivist of the future may no longer be recognised solely as the custodian of records.

They may also become the designer of trustworthy documentary environments.

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🤔 A hypothesis we partially revised

Initially we believed Artificial Intelligence would primarily transform archives.

Today we increasingly suspect that its greatest impact lies elsewhere.

Artificial Intelligence transforms how archival ecosystems themselves are designed, governed and understood.

That distinction fundamentally changes our research agenda.

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🌱 A hypothesis under construction

Perhaps Intelligent Archival Ecosystems represent the next stage of digital transformation within Archival Science.

Not because they replace traditional archival principles.

But because they expand the discipline's capacity to respond to societies increasingly shaped by data, intelligent agents and computational infrastructures.

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🧭 Research Agenda

During the coming months we intend to investigate several interconnected questions.

• How should Intelligent Archival Ecosystems be modelled for public institutions?

• How can intelligent agents operate within the Chain of Archival Digital Custody?

• Can PREMIS evolve into an active governance mechanism?

• How should Retrieval-Augmented Generation, local AI models and archival description operate together while preserving authenticity and context?

• How can trustworthy intelligent agents be evaluated within archival environments?

• How should archivists be educated to design, govern and continuously evaluate Intelligent Archival Ecosystems?

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🔭 Looking toward 2040

If our hypotheses prove correct,

archives may gradually cease to be perceived merely as repositories of records.

Instead, they may become recognised as intelligent ecosystems supporting trust,

transparency,

institutional memory,

digital sovereignty,

public accountability

and democratic governance.

Within those environments,

archivists will remain central.

Not because they control every technology.

But because they continue safeguarding authenticity, provenance, documentary evidence, institutional continuity and public trust.

Perhaps that future has already begun.

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💬 Let's continue the conversation

How do you imagine an Intelligent Archival Ecosystem within your own institution?

Which activities could responsibly be delegated to intelligent agents?

Which decisions should always remain under human archival responsibility?

How can automation, efficiency, ethics, digital sovereignty and institutional accountability coexist?

Perhaps these questions will define the next generation of Archival Science.