Capita ancora di sentire o di leggere che la cultura è per pochi, che si tratta di un settore distante, impersonale, elitista. Ma è una percezione profondamente errata: tutti, in un modo o nell'altro, consumano e partecipano a pratiche culturali: chi al cinema, chi ballando, chi leggendo, andando a teatro, visitando un museo, partecipando a un evento.

Cultural Observatories emerged in the late 1980s, gaining prominence over the last two decades. Initially inspired by Grenoble's Observatoire des politiques culturelles (1989) and Strasbourg's Observatoire européen de l'audiovisuel (1992), these observatories now number more than 100 across four continents, with a significant concentration in Europe. They vary in scope and focus, reflecting the diversity of cultural landscapes.

The world changes; it always has, with or without human intervention. The novelty in recent years lies in the frequency, intensity, and those so-called leaps – or disruptive changes – that transform the socio-economic fabric at an ever-increasing pace. Sometimes these are caused by revolutionary technologies; at other times, they are the result of gradual maturation that does not attract public opinion's attention until they become too significant to go unnoticed. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is likely one of these latter cases. Ignored for several decades, it has now matured the necessary potential to manifest significant and growing impacts on human communities in the years to come.