Ben Gulak, founder of the Networked Artistic Learning Algorithm (NALA), has seamlessly combined his diverse talents as a computer scientist, entrepreneur and professional painter to transform the art market. With the shift in the art landscape driven by external factors, the visionary shares valuable insights into navigating it by leveraging vast data and democratizing access to art.

Following the recent economic and geopolitical challenges, Ben shares an interesting perspective on the current art market. “The market is experiencing a decline,” he says. No segment is untouched — emerging artists, established names, galleries and even art fairs are all feeling the squeeze. “Almost every artist offers massive discounts to sell. Galleries are admitting sales are down, and fairs have been lackluster, to say the least,” the founder adds.

A large share of industry veterans are quick to say that this downturn was unexpected, but Ben argues many of the signs of fallout have been around for a while. Annual market reports showcased record numbers in the past few years, but concerns were growing at the lower end of the market.

Although the market’s restructuring is devastating for talent and galleries, the industry must become more resilient in the face of evolving challenges. Ben believes this era is an inevitable phase in the market’s cyclical nature, and will eventually birth a newer, more value-driven sector.

Several factors may have contributed to the art market’s restructuring. Ben believes the ultra-high cost of living is the main reason why art has become less important. “If people struggle to keep their homes and cars filled with gas and buy groceries, then there’s simply less disposable money floating around,” Ben says. “Maybe on the high end of the market, people are holding onto their money and waiting on geopolitical issues, but I think most people are just struggling right now, and we have to accept that.”

In the first half of 2024, the art market saw a startling drop in sales. Galleries, artists and collectors have grappled with this setback in different ways. Overall, market inefficiencies have exacerbated and even existed when spending was higher due to low interest rates. The sector’s problems have persisted quietly in the background. “Galleries have dominated the industry, being the gatekeepers, determining who is deemed valuable, who is worth collecting and who can succeed,” Ben says. “The result is that the majority of the global artistic talent pool is kept out of the marketplace, and we are stuck in a quagmire of overpriced, market-manipulated items. With the explosion of the internet, a few big platforms have stepped in to handle online sales. But these cater almost exclusively to galleries, creating a fee structure that’s roughly 30% to the platform, 50% to the gallery, and whatever is left goes to the artists. The buyer, meanwhile, often still has a luxury import duty on the art they purchased.”

As people become more value-conscious, these fees and middlemen become undesirable. Ben believes a buyer’s market where buyers have the ability to go directly to artists and purchase items at a cost they can afford will become the norm.

Ultimately, art is worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. “If you are looking to spend less than $20,000 on a work of art, you should get something you genuinely love and be happy for its artistic value, not because it might go up in value. I understand why some collectors are pulling their work from auctions to avoid seeing their collection value decrease. But that doesn’t mean sales can’t still happen. We are in a buyer’s market right now. Every artist is willing to negotiate, and every artist is hungry to keep doing what they love,” Ben explains.

The art market is poised to recover at some point in the future as the demand for original, quality creations will never completely vanish. Humans inherently require some form of expression and creativity to find fulfillment in life, making art an indivisible part of society’s DNA. Ben echoes these sentiments, “The market lost sight of the importance of merit, allowing the cream to rise to the top, and instead, we got a very messy, bloated industry that needs to right itself. We need to rethink the entire sales process of how art is discovered and acquired. Too many artists were kept on the outskirts, and buyers never had an opportunity to truly select the best items with the old system. We need a leveling of the playing field and allow art lovers to trust their instincts, deal directly with artists and see what happens. As long as we have a business model that caters to the old system, we aren’t looking to the future. Every industry on the planet is going buyer/seller-direct.”

Soon, Ben predicts a shift toward value-driven demand and hopes a meritocratic ecosystem prevails, rewarding true artistic and creative talent while filtering out derivative and copycat artists. Authenticity must be celebrated. After all, art is meant to personify the human experience, make statements about social issues, or simply capture the beauty of life. If talent isn’t encouraged to march to their own drum, the prevalence of generic art will only grow.

After having straddled both the art world as a painter and agent of sorts in the tech world, Ben built NALA [Networked Artistic Learning Algorithm] as a way to broaden the art market and crack it wide open. “I believe that if we can create a marketplace where all artists can participate and buyers have access to see the best of what’s available and deal directly with artists, we have an opportunity to revolutionize the industry,” he says.

NALA works by matching art lovers with artists based on their unique personal preferences. Every time an art lover engages with an image on NALA, it learns their preferences and can find more artwork suited to them. This makes it possible to efficiently connect artists with art lovers and take no commissions. Ben is anticipating a major transformation in the art market within the next five years thanks to NALA’s pioneering technology. “With my NALA, we can create an open marketplace where all buyers have access to stunning pieces that artists are fairly compensated for,” Ben says.

VentureBeat newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.

Microsoft is planning to support the streaming of Xbox game libraries next month. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company is getting ready to test the ability to stream games that you own that aren’t part of the existing Xbox Game Pass library.

As part of a long-running project known as Project Lapland inside of Microsoft, the software giant has been readying its Xbox Cloud Gaming servers to be able to support streaming thousands of games. I’m told Microsoft will first test its new Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming capabilities with Xbox Insiders in November, before expanding them to more Xbox users and more games.

The Xbox Cloud Gaming expansion comes in the same month Microsoft plans to enable game purchases in its Xbox mobile app for Android in the US. Microsoft is able to do this thanks to a court ruling earlier this week that forces Google to stop requiring Google Play Billing for apps in the Play Store on November 1st.

Xbox president Sarah Bond revealed yesterday that “starting in November, players will be able to play and purchase Xbox games directly from the Xbox App on Android.” Once Microsoft’s work to enable a full game library on Xbox Cloud Gaming is complete, you’ll be able to purchase an Xbox game on Android and immediately stream it to your device.

Project xCloud was supposed to launch with game library streaming in 2020. Microsoft then announced it would support your game library on Xbox Cloud Gaming in 2022, but it never launched that year. I understand the work has been complicated by having to prepare key infrastructure for thousands of games, instead of the hundreds that currently exist on Xbox Game Pass. While thousands of games will soon be available through Xbox Cloud Gaming, I’m told some publishers will hold certain games back due to licensing requirements or deals.

Microsoft is also working on a browser-based Xbox mobile store that it was originally planning to launch in July. The store will initially include deals and in-game items but will grow to cover first-party games eventually. Microsoft said in August that testing had begun on the web-based mobile store and that “work is progressing well and we will have more to share in the future.”

Update, October 11th: Article updated to mention original Project xCloud plans.

While I resent the accusation, I have from time to time been branded as clumsy. I used to rarely drop things, but in more recent times I’ve found myself knocking over glasses, ripping clothes, and damaging a frankly stupid amount of phones; most of these were test units, but still. 

Despite this tendency for pricey flagship phones to hop out of my hands or decide to miss my pocket, I never use a case with such smartphones. Even with some of the best foldable phones – the most fragile of handsets – I eschew the case life. 

The New York Times has introduced the next title coming to its Games catalog following Wordle’s continued success — and it’s all about math. Digits has players adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers. You can play its beta for free online right now. 
In Digits, players are presented with a target number that they need to match. Players are given six numbers and have the ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide them to get as close to the target as they can. Not every number needs to be used, though, so this game should put your math skills to the test as you combine numbers and try to make the right equations to get as close to the target number as possible.

Players will get a five-star rating if they match the target number exactly, a three-star rating if they get within 10 of the target, and a one-star rating if they can get within 25 of the target number. Currently, players are also able to access five different puzzles with increasingly larger numbers as well.  I solved today’s puzzle and found it to be an enjoyable number-based game that should appeal to inquisitive minds that like puzzle games such as Threes or other The New York Times titles like Wordle and Spelling Bee.
In an article unveiling Digits and detailing The New York Time Games team’s process to game development, The Times says the team will use this free beta to fix bugs and assess if it’s worth moving into a more active development phase “where the game is coded and the designs are finalized.” So play Digits while you can, as The New York Times may move on from the project if it doesn’t get the response it is hoping for. 
Digits’ beta is available to play for free now on The New York Times Games’ website