New AI Tool Audits Gallery Rosters for Gender Imbalance

By Elena Vasquez

A new AI tool now audits gallery rosters for gender balance, flagging an imbalance that grows widest at galleries with annual turnover above $10 million. The software also issues a "Less Than Half Approved" digital badge to qualifying institutions.

What does the tool actually do?

The program parses each gallery's listed artists. It groups them into male, female, and non-binary categories. It also attempts to read the gender makeup of duos and collectives. The tool remains imperfect, its creator concedes. Galleries passing the benchmark earn the verification sticker.

• Creator: Hall W Rockefeller
• Parent organization: Less Than Half
• Function: parses public rosters automatically
• Output: a digital badge for compliant galleries
• Limitation: non-binary detection remains imprecise, per its designer

The takeaway: any gallery can now be measured against the benchmark, even if the non-binary data stays rough.

Who built it, and why?

Rockefeller runs Less Than Half, an organization campaigning for women artists. She told Ocula the tool is meant to surface what she describes as systemic exclusions from the commercial gallery system.

"I want people to notice the very apparent discrepancies and inequalities between men and women artists and the systematic ways in which women artists are kept from succeeding," Rockefeller told Ocula. Beyond purchasing art by women, "we want to support the people who are supporting women artists," she said, "supporting galleries who make a distinct point of representing women artists, supporting the development of their work, careers, and building legacies."

The takeaway: Rockefeller's group pairs collector spending with public verification, two tools aimed at the same imbalance.

What do the collecting numbers show?

Art Basel and UBS's 2025 Global Survey of Collecting found that high-net-worth women hold 9% more women artists on average in their collections than male peers do. In 2024, women collectors spent 46% more than men on art and antiques combined.

"This is a consumer that is more likely to buy, and more likely to take risks," Rockefeller argued. "Especially for the middle market, the female collector is the figure that could really be the lifeline for a lot of these struggling mid-tier galleries we're hearing so much about."

The takeaway: women already outspend men by 46% in 2024 and tilt their collections toward women artists by 9 points.

Where does the gap widen most?

The UBS and Art Basel 2026 Art Market Report flags galleries with turnover above $10 million as the segment where the gender gap widens fastest. Trillions of dollars in wealth are expected to change hands over coming decades, the report notes.

"A lot of that wealth is going to women: to widows, to daughters," Rockefeller added. She sees an opening for blue-chip international galleries, arguing they should court female collectors with structured programs now.

The wider implication: if roster audits spread, galleries above $10 million in turnover may face pressure to publish verifiable gender data, while female-led collecting growth reshapes which mid-tier dealers survive.