Project summary

The common challenge addressed by ArchXAI is improving timely access to archive collections while both archival volumes and public information requests continue to grow. The project objective is to improve public services and archival access through jointly developed AI-based solutions that make cataloguing, indexing, and information request handling faster and more usable across borders.

The project outputs described in the application are an open source AI HTR tool, an open source AI OCR tool, a tool for enhanced cataloguing and indexing, and an AI-assisted toolset for information requests. The beneficiaries are archivists, archive users, researchers, and the broader public.

Internally, the underlying material comes from the project's technology-comparison deliverable. For external readers, the purpose is simpler: we test tools, explain what they are good at, and publish useful conclusions as the evidence becomes solid enough to share.

The current publication emphasizes practical questions:

• Which model families are accurate enough for multilingual archival tasks?
• Which approaches are fast enough for large-scale indexing?
• Which tools are realistic to operate inside institutional archive environments?
• Which solutions are still strong enough only for triage and review support, not for autonomous decisions?