From Hype to Hardware: How AI is Transforming the Collectibles Industry from the Inside Out

Discussion with Francesco Garbin

With over 30 years of experience spanning Wall Street’s high-speed trading systems, Silicon Valley’s innovation hubs, and now the heart of Europe’s fandom economy, Francesco Garbin has continuously operated at the forefront of software evolution. Today, as Chief Technology Officer at Gamevision, he brings that legacy to one of the most surprising arenas of digital transformation: the $30B global collectibles market. In a sector where tradition meets obsession, innovation is often resisted—but no longer avoidable. In this article Garbin shares how through AI, machine learning, and computer vision, he and his team are rewriting the rules of authenticity, trust, and customer experience in a market once powered purely by hype.

Turning Hype Into Trust: Building Credibility in a Market Fueled by Perception

"You're dealing with pieces of cardboard that can be worth up to $5 million", says Garbin. "We're talking Pokémon". In the collectibles world, perception is reality, and that perception is deeply influenced by trust, storytelling, and verification. "All the value that is attributed to those items is entirely hype, it’s just a megatrend", Garbin annotates. Missteps in grading or authenticity can erode customer confidence and trigger sharp losses in resale markets. 

Aware of this , Garbin and his team recognized the need to shift the conversation from hype to trust. “When somebody attributes value to a physical object, you take a huge responsibility", Garbin explains. Their mission became clear: to build a layer of digital integrity around physical goods that have no intrinsic value beyond what the market imagines for them.

"We started with zero customers", Garbin recalls. "The systems were too clunky. The customer interface was crazy. You couldn’t figure out a way to organize  the service". With that baseline, the transformation was dramatic. "We just went through a pretty tough revision process and we transformed  what was a steep path for the customer into this one.", Garbin mentions, motioning a gentle slope. Now, customers can order grading services in a few clicks. 

AI Grading and the Future of Authenticity

The transformation at Gamevision isn’t just about improving user experience—it’s about building integrity into the outcome. At the heart of this shift is a sophisticated AI-based grading engine that evaluates trading cards with precision. “We use YOLO—the same tech in self-driving cars—but in our case, it identifies scratches, dents, and flaws on cards”, Garbin explains.

Powered by a stack of tools like OpenCV, OCR, Scikit-learn, and PyTorch, the system goes beyond surface defects. It assesses each card’s full identity, from edition stamps to illustrator signatures, and cross-references it against a global dataset of millions of TCG records. The result is a fast, consistent, and scientifically backed grade—replacing subjectivity with trust.

Each graded card is sealed with a sensorized NFC label and paired with a blockchain-secured certificate, creating a tamper-proof trail from collector to marketplace. “We work with open-source communities and hardware experts to bring this to life”, Garbin notes. “It all converges to deliver truth in a market once ruled by perception”. This isn’t just a grading tool—it’s a reputation system. “We’re offering proof, not promises”, Garbin says. And it works: even his own Pikachu card, trashed for a week, came back with a grade of 1. 

Within two years, Gamevision had engineered a complete transformation. Its AI Grading platform now serves over 60,000 customers in Italy and underpins more than 200 physical retail stores. "We didn't just fix UX. We engineered credibility", Garbin emphasized.

From CTO to Craftsman: Prototyping at the Pace of Curiosity

Garbin’s leadership is intentionally hands-on. While many CTOs operate at a strategic distance, he chooses to stay immersed in the technical core of the company. Even as he leads a rapidly scaling tech organization, Garbin remains directly involved in prototyping—often writing code himself to bring early-stage ideas to life. “I’m getting very practical”, Garbin says.

Instead of waiting on his development team to operationalize new concepts, Garbin builds the first version himself—developing proof-of-concepts before passing them on for refinement. He sees this as a defining trait of the modern technical leader: someone who actively bridges vision with execution. “I don’t work on production systems, that’s not my job”, Garbin explains. “I focus on new initiatives, new designs, new opportunities, always through code”.

For Garbin, this hands-on approach isn’t just preference, it’s strategic. “That’s where a technical CTO, someone with greasy hands from code, can create real value”, Garbin notes. By building internally and validating ideas in real time, he minimizes delays and bypasses external dependencies. “When you can test something instantly—no budget, no supplier, no third party—just write it yourself. That mindset? I always keep it”.

The Great Divide: Brand Strategy Over Product Strategy

When asked about the role of technology in Gamevision’s broader business strategy, Garbin is quick to clarify: "We’re past the product phase. We’re building a brand". 

This shift from product-centric thinking to brand-centric strategy reshaped the company structure entirely. Gamevision split its B2B and B2C businesses into two distinct entities, each with tailored objectives and communication strategies. "They don’t talk to each other, and they shouldn’t. B2B is about relationships. B2C is about emotion", Garbin explains.

This clarity also informs how technology is built and deployed. "In B2C, one-star reviews happen more than five-star ones. So tech needs to make great service feel effortless. In B2B, reliability and speed of execution define the brand. So tech has to be seamlessly integrated, almost invisible". In both cases, software becomes the vehicle through which brand identity is delivered.

Scaling Trust, Not Just Tech

Gamevision's grading platform evolved from a tangled MVP into a domain-driven, component-based architecture. The hardest part? "De-siloing the MVP, the original prototype that validated the concept, and scale it", Garbin laughs. Breaking apart the original product into interoperable components meant rethinking APIs, state management, and how systems exchange data. "It took psychology and enthusiasm, not just engineering, to grow the best team engagement.".

As AI becomes more deeply embedded in everything from pricing to fraud detection, Garbin sees the future less as automation and more as augmentation. "Expert systems will help us go beyond what humans can perceive. But the goal isn’t to replace people. It’s to let them focus on what truly matters: judgment, creativity, and trust".

The Future of AI in Collectibles

Looking ahead, Garbin sees AI playing a foundational role in transforming how authenticity, pricing, and fraud detection are handled. “We already rely on AI expert systems to spot defects and guarantee authenticity”, Garbin annotates. “The next step? Letting AI make decisions without active training”.

He draws parallels to AI’s evolution in manufacturing, where cameras detect flaws on production lines. But in the collectible space, it’s about extending those capabilities toward creativity, even autonomy. “Eventually, we’ll move past scraping and into reasoning. When AI begins reasoning on its own, even in authentication, that’s when things get exciting—and possibly terrifying”, Garbin adds.

Still, Garbin remains optimistic and grounded. “Software has kept me young. This industry keeps you fresh. It keeps you smiling”.

Key Takeaways for the Executive Community

• Invent What Doesn’t Exist: True innovation isn’t incremental—it’s imaginative. For leaders, this means creating space for bold ideas and challenging teams to pursue what’s never been done, not just what’s next.
• Build With the Right People: The complexity of modern tech demands cross-functional brilliance. Success hinges not only on talent but on trust, collaboration, and shared ownership of both risk and reward.
• Lead With Curiosity and Gratitude: In fast-moving industries, intellectual humility is a strategic asset. Leaders who stay curious, stay relevant—and those who appreciate the journey often inspire the best in others. 

As AI evolves from backend enabler to cultural driver, Garbin’s message stands out: lead with vision, build with empathy, and stay relentlessly open to what’s possible.