Everything you missed at Christie’s 2026 Art + Tech Summit
The annual event brings together artists, founders, collectors and journalists to discuss the state of the art and technology sectors
Christie’s Art + Tech summit attendees listen to a conversation between Bloomberg journalist Erik Schatzker and Christie’s Global Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art Max Carter
Since its inaugural edition in 2018, Christie’s Art + Tech Summit has convened leading thinkers from the worlds of art and technology for panels and discussions about the most relevant issues facing both spheres. The summit is part of Christie’s Ventures, which invests in early-stage companies and founders at the intersection of art and technology.
The speakers for this year’s event — held on 16 July at Christie’s New York headquarters at Rockefeller Center — included Komal Shah, a collector and philanthropist; Max Carter, the global chairman of 20th and 21st century art at Christie’s; Peter Tuchman, a floor trader known as the ‘Einstein of Wall Street’; Andrew Wolff, chairman of Artsy and Artnet; and Richard Barton, the co-founder and co-executive chair of Zillow, among others.
The summit opened with comments from Julien Pradels, the president of the Americas division at Christie’s, who introduced one of the major themes of the day: innovation. ‘Innovation is not new to Christie’s,’ Pradels said, adding that it ‘comes from continually evolving while maintaining trust, expertise and relationships.’ Below, read on for the best soundbites from the day.
Julien Pradels, president of the Americas division at Christie's, kicked off the day with opening remarks
Today's younger collectors aren't just asking what they've inherited — they're asking, ‘What's my responsibility?’ They want their collections to reflect their values, and collecting has become a way to build community and create impact.
The event’s opening panel paired Christie’s CEO Bonnie Brennan with Michael Anders, the founder of global investment firm ICONIQ Capital, in a conversation moderated by Robert Frank, a wealth reporter at CNBC. The trio discussed how a younger generation of collectors (especially tech founders) approach buying art — and why art is considered a valuable investment despite rapid technological advances.
They make [tech wealth] in digital, and they spend it in analog.
Christie’s CEO Bonnie Brennan spoke on the summit’s opening panel
The stuff that the machine can't do is what's left. You want to be able to do things that are different — that are not the average, that are not the way anybody would ordinarily do them. That's what gets people to start talking about taste, or opinion, or preference. What is the way that you would do that as opposed to the way the average — the machine — would do that?
One technological advance that was discussed in every panel and conversation was artificial intelligence. In a panel devoted to AI, moderated by journalist Julia Chatterly, independent analyst Benedict Evans made a point of emphasising the importance of individual taste, preferences and habits as a way to differentiate from AI.
Everyone thinks you need to do one really big thing to change the world, but literally one person to another — that connection — is so powerful.
Peter Tuchman, fondly known as the ‘Einstein of Wall Street’ thanks to his distinctive hair and decades on the stock exchange floor, grew up in a family that appreciated art and even operates a private gallery space in the New York Stock Exchange. In his conversation at the Art + Tech Summit, Tuchman said that the NYSE was ‘the last human marketplace in the world’ and stressed the importance of person-to-person interactions.
Moderated by Robert Frank, wealth reporter at CNBC, Christie’s CEO Bonnie Brennan and Michael Anders, the founder of ICONIQ Capital, discuss new approaches to buying art
Right now is the time to actually take the time to build some foundational, deep domain expertise — whether it's science, whether it's arts, whether it's music.
During a panel alongside founder Kevin Hartz and Julia Chatterly, Typeface founder Abhay Parasnis advised that — perhaps counterintuitively — the rise of AI was a good time for people to invest in tactile skills like artmaking and music.
It wasn't just about the numbers. The atmosphere was as electric and memorable as I've ever experienced.
In a discussion about the current state of the art market, Christie’s Global Chairman Max Carter reflected on the auction house’s record-shattering 20th and 21st century marquee week in May. He highlighted the ‘electric’ atmosphere inside the auction room and singled out S.I. Newhouse’s collection (which included a record-breaking Jackson Pollock painting and Constantin Brancusi sculpture) as one of his favorites of the sales.
Max Carter, Christie's Global Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art, speaks about the current state of the art market
What we need is sustained momentum — to the point of induction into the canon — where artists have the same probability that their work is rewarded whether they are men or women. I don't think we're there yet.
During a conversation with Anne Kraybill, the CEO of Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation, and artist Jitish Kallat, influential collector and philanthropist Komal Shah (who collects almost exclusively art by female artists) discussed how the art world can continue to do more for female artists.
The following panel continued that thread, with art advisor Benjamin Gross noting that one thing that collectors, founders, philanthropists and art lovers can do for artists is to simply ‘show up’ and give their time and money.
Showing up in the art world is one of the most important things we can do. Show up for the art. Show up for the artists. Show up with your time. Show up with your money. Show up for the community.
One of the last conversations of the day was held between Devang Thakkar, Global Head of Ventures and Innovation Labs, and Baiju Bhatt, the former CEO of Robinhood. Bhatt discussed his new company, Cowboy Space Corporation, and his hope that the growing space exploration industry will lead to exciting new opportunities for young people wanting to work in science and tech.
If you'd ask people in the 1960s, ‘What does the space industry look like in 25 years?’, I think there would have been some pretty optimistic views on it. But I think that 25 years later, the space industry looked like it was past tense. So that’s another fire that's burning bright to say, ‘Let's not make the next 25 years like that.’
In Devang Thakkar’s closing remarks, he referenced Steve Jobs’ famous quote that the computer is ‘a bicycle for the mind’, meaning it’s meant to help you do a job or get to a certain destination. Thakker brought the metaphor into the present day by likening AI to an ‘airplane of the mind’ — but noted that there is still important, thoughtful work to do before AI can be an ideal aircraft.
We have a lot of things to figure out: the runways to land this thing, the air traffic control, the pilot's licensing and everything in between. We all have to do our part. So let's build it thoughtfully and let's introduce it thoughtfully. The hype is the hype and people will always chase the hype, but let's do it thoughtfully.
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