In early December, we hosted a three-day AI Festival that brought together leading researchers and industry experts to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping science, industry, and society. Across keynotes, panels, and demos, one message came through clearly: AI will profoundly transform research, but it will not replace the scientists who conduct it. Instead, human judgment, ethics, data stewardship, and validation are more essential than ever.

The Festival opened with welcoming words from our Rector, Jens Schneider, WWTF Managing Director Michael Stampfer, and the festival’s initiator Nysret Musliu, Professor at our Research Unit Databases and Artificial Intelligence.

The first day of the festival, which focused on how AI transforms research and science more broadly, set the tone for three days of rigorous debate and forward-looking insights. Sessions examined data reliability and validation, the growing prominence of “black-box” models—especially in biomedicine—and the need for ethics-by-design and interdisciplinary collaboration. Building on these themes, the keynote speakers highlighted how AI-driven discovery is shifting theory to the back seat, while still demanding careful human interpretation and clinical validation, and emphasized bridging disciplinary silos to turn AI’s capabilities into robust solutions.

The day concluded with a panel discussion on where AI is going next. The conversation moved to high-stakes applications, with the panel pointing to accelerating defense use cases that heighten the urgency for responsible development and governance. It underscored that AI’s impact must be shaped by ethical practice and careful oversight: bringing human judgment, ethical reflection, reliable data, and adequate computing into sustained alignment. Doing so means testing systems rigorously and being able to reproduce their results, making design choices and trade-offs visible and accountable while protecting privacy by default, ensuring that access to data and computational resources does not become a bottleneck for who can participate, and working across disciplines so real-world expertise informs how models are built and used. Only under these conditions can AI scale in ways that are trustworthy, safe, and broadly beneficial.

The second day of the AI Festival shifted the focus from research to real-world impact, centering on industry, business, and the growing interplay between academia and practice. The program opened with lightning talks from industry leaders and university researchers, offering concrete views into current challenges and emerging AI solutions developed through joint projects and spin-offs. These exchanges highlighted how collaboration across sectors is already translating research into deployed systems, while also exposing the frictions that arise when moving from prototypes to products. A panel discussion then dug deeper into best practices for academic spin-offs, exploring what it takes to turn strong ideas into sustainable ventures without losing scientific rigor or long-term vision.