{"id":1789,"date":"2025-05-21T10:44:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T10:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/piwigo.com\/blog\/?p=1789"},"modified":"2026-03-17T11:31:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T11:31:05","slug":"piwigo-ai-artificial-intelligence-is-coming-to-piwigo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/piwigo.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/21\/piwigo-ai-artificial-intelligence-is-coming-to-piwigo\/","title":{"rendered":"Piwigo AI: Artificial Intelligence is coming to Piwigo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pierrick’s message<\/p><\/div>

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Willy and I are currently working on a major project: bringing artificial intelligence into Piwigo<\/strong>.
We’re not doing this just to follow the hype \u2014 we want to make AI genuinely useful.
It\u2019s still a work in progress, but we thought you\u2019d be interested to get a sneak peek \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Why use AI in Piwigo?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You might be wondering:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow could artificial intelligence be useful in Piwigo?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most obvious answer is automating photo indexing<\/strong>, such as adding keywords automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Piwigo\u2019s search engine relies on textual data linked to your photos: title, description, tags, albums\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if your images are all thrown into a \u201cmisc\u201d folder, named IMG_0123.jpg<\/code>, with no tags or descriptions, search becomes almost useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, you can filter by date or file format \u2014 but that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the search to be really helpful, your photos need to be indexed with titles, descriptions, tags…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that takes time. Lots of it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u21d2 AI can do a first indexing pass in seconds. Our tests show the results are solid.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can then review and edit the results as needed. And voil\u00e0 \u2014 a well-organized, searchable photo library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you like, you can take a look below at some (non-contractual!) mock-ups of how these features could be integrated into Piwigo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"AI
<\/a>

AI Analysis while editing a photo<\/h4><\/div><\/div>
\"AI
<\/a>

AI analysis while uploading photos<\/h4><\/div><\/div>
\"AI
<\/a>

AI Analysis with batch manager<\/h4><\/div><\/div>
\"AI
<\/a>

AI generated tag management<\/h4><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What we had before\u2026 and why it wasn\u2019t ideal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A few years ago, Zacharie developed a plugin called Tag Recognition<\/strong><\/a>. It uses external services (like Microsoft or Imagga) to analyze photos and suggest tags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It works, but there are two big issues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. These are closed, proprietary services. We don\u2019t control how they work or how your data is handled. That goes against Piwigo\u2019s open-source values.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. They\u2019re expensive. Imagga recently raised its base price to $70\/month. Way too much.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    What\u2019s changed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Recent AI advancements have opened new doors. Today, it’s possible to run open-source AI models<\/strong> on your own server or a dedicated one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Not on a tiny shared hosting server, of course, but on more powerful machines \u2014 like the ones we rent and manage for piwigo.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re building. Pigolabs (the company behind Piwigo.com) will host an AI service that any Piwigo \u2014 including self-hosted ones \u2014 can connect to via a plugin: Piwigo AI.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What Piwigo AI can already do<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Here\u2019s what\u2019s available in the first version:<\/p>\n\n\n\n