Museum of Democracy
AI-powered kiosks bringing American democracy into conversation
The Museum of Democracy is dedicated to making the history and principles of American democracy accessible and relevant to a modern audience. They commissioned an interactive AI-powered exhibit to engage visitors raised on digital media in a way that static plaques and audio guides couldn't.
An AI-powered interactive kiosk experience at the Museum of Democracy, built with DigitalDNA Labs. Visitors hold real-time conversations with lifelike AI digital twins of George Washington and other figures who shaped U.S. democracy. Multilingual, paired with a mobile companion app.
The Museum of Democracy needed a way to make American democratic history feel immediate and interactive to a generation of visitors raised on TikTok and ChatGPT. Static plaques and audio guides weren't going to do it. The institution wanted an exhibit that could compete — for attention, for engagement, for relevance — with the entertainment platforms their visitors come from.
DigitalDNA Labs came to Koalition as the build partner: a team who could ship the experience to the museum floor in production, integrating their CloneMe.io AI digital twin platform with kiosk hardware, a multilingual content layer, and a mobile companion app that visitors could carry home.
Koalition partnered with DigitalDNA Labs to deliver Democracy Matters — an AI-powered interactive kiosk experience anchored by lifelike AI avatars of George Washington and other figures who shaped U.S. democracy from 1789 to today. Visitors walk up to a kiosk and have an actual conversation with the founders: ask questions, hear perspectives, dig into the events that shaped the country.
The experience is multilingual from day one, so it speaks to international visitors and ESL audiences without forcing a language compromise. Each kiosk is paired with a QR code that drops visitors into the MOD Tour Guide mobile app — extending the conversation past the museum walls. The kiosk and the app share the same AI brain, so the founder you talked to in the gallery picks up the conversation in your pocket on the train home.
The build sits on top of DigitalDNA Labs' CloneMe.io platform for the AI digital twins (voice, likeness, personality). Koalition handled the experience layer, the kiosk integration, the multilingual content delivery pipeline, and the mobile companion app.
Democracy Matters turned a museum visit into a conversation. Visitors spend longer at each station and engage more deeply than they would with traditional placards. International audiences engage in their own language, broadening the museum's reach beyond its DC catchment. The kiosks routinely surface insights that wouldn't fit on a wall — what Washington thought about partisan politics, how the Bill of Rights almost didn't get one of its amendments, the small decisions that shaped institutions we now take for granted.
The exhibit has become a destination in its own right — visitors come specifically to talk to the founders, and the QR-driven mobile companion means the conversation continues after they leave. From DigitalDNA Labs founder Jason Inasi: “In these challenging times, engaging with democracy is crucial. By using cutting-edge, immersive technology, we aim to share the story of democracy with a wider audience. Our partnership with the Museum of Democracy showcases how AI can transform how we experience history.”
Democracy Matters is the new shape of museum work — a physical kiosk installation that's also a software platform, a single experience that exists in three places: the museum floor, the visitor's phone, and the back-end content system the museum's editorial team can update over time. With DigitalDNA Labs leading the creative and AI vision and Koalition handling the build, the Museum of Democracy now has a flagship exhibit that competes with the entertainment platforms its visitors come from — and a template for how cultural institutions stay relevant in the age of conversational AI.
