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The prevalence of speech assistants taking orders, social bots influencing debates, and machines generating texts underscores the increasing sophistication of automated communication. Simultaneously, public discourse on these phenomena reflects the ongoing challenges associated with the automation of communication. It seems that the intricacies of today’s complex societies compel a reliance on automation to meet communication needs, while also generating additional issues for which automated communication appears to be the most plausible solution.

Research in nine projects plus coordination project

The “Communicative AI“ Research Unit, funded by the DFG and the FWF, is investigating in nine projects and one coordination project how societal communication changes when communicative AI becomes part of it. Top researchers from the fields of media and communication studies, informatics, sociology and law are involved. The research focuses on pioneer communities, the development of interfaces, the legal handling and governance of communicative AI, its role in journalism, in public (online) discourse, in everyday personal life through technological companions, in the health sector and in learning and teaching.

Illustration "Futuring", by Wokandapix

From Analyses of the Present to Futuring – Call for Contributions for Workshop at the University of Bremen

How do visions of the future emerge within science, media, and society – and what methodological approaches help us study them? Under the title “From Analyses of the Present to Futuring”, the DFG Research Unit Communicative AI (ComAI) together with the Section for Sociology of Knowledge of the German Sociological Association (DGS) invites submissions for (…)

Call for Papers: The Imaginative Landscape of AI

Call for Papers: The Imaginative Landscape of AI – Visions, Positions, Conflicts

Few technological developments spark more debate today than artificial intelligence. From promises of human advancement to fears of existential risk, AI generates a multitude of visions, conflicts, and societal debates. This “imaginative landscape of AI” goes beyond technical issues, encompassing political struggles, social movements, and ideas about the future of communication and society. The International (…)

Taina Bucher bei der ComAI-Lecture in Bremen

Taina Bucher at the ComAI Lectures – Beyond the Seamless Future of AI

On 25 November 2025, Prof. Dr. Taina Bucher (University of Oslo) visited ZeMKI as part of the ComAI Lectures. In her talk “Presenting AI: Slowing Down the Future”, she asked what gets lost when AI is imagined primarily as the engine of an ever faster, more efficient, and more “seamless” future: What disappears when everything (…)

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Jonah Wermter presents at SPIEGEL Group's “AI Week”

On October 16, Jonah Wermter from Project 5, “ComAI and Journalism – The Automation of News and Journalistic Autonomy,” was invited to give a lecture as part of the SPIEGEL Group’s annual “AI Week.” In his presentation, Jonah spoke about the current state of research on AI in journalism, focusing particularly on patterns of appropriation (…)

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Research Colloquium: Communicative AI and Digital Support

Date: November 26, 2025 Time: 1:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. Address: Rooseveltplatz 2, 1090 Vienna Location: Seminar Room 3 (Institute of Sociology) Link: Communicative AI and Digital Companionship Speakers: Michaela Pfadenhauer, Andrea Heisse, and Marvin Waibel (P7) Abstract: Within the DFG and FWF-funded research group FOR 5656 “ComAI: The Automation of Social Communication,” the Vienna-based (…)

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Joint Workshop on Digital Infrastructures, Space and Communication: SFB 1265 and ComAI in Dialogue

On 11 and 12 November 2025, SFB 1265 “Re-Figuration of Spaces” and FOR 5656 “Communicative AI” hosted the joint workshop “Digital Infrastructures, Space and Communication” at Technische Universität Berlin, featuring keynote impulses by Martina Löw, Silke Steets, Andreas Hepp, and Hubert Knoblauch. The workshop centred on discussing different concepts of infrastructure within both research consortia, (…)

Filmreihe "Caring Democracies - Caring Technologies" in Graz

Film series "Caring Democracies - Caring Technologies"

Filmreihe “Caring Democracies – Caring Technologies” in Graz The CIRAC (Center for Interdisciplinary Ageing and Care Research) at the University of Graz is organizing a film series in the winter semester on the theme “Caring Democracies – Caring Technologies.” It features films that explore how technologies are transforming the practices and policies of care in democracies. Who (…)

Filmreihe "Caring Democracies - Caring Technologies" in Graz

Film series "Caring Democracies - Caring Technologies" in Graz

The CIRAC (Center for Interdisciplinary Ageing and Care Research) at the University of Graz is organizing a film series in the winter semester on the theme “Caring Democracies – Caring Technologies.” It features films that explore how technologies are transforming the practices and policies of care in democracies. Who assumes responsibility for sustainable and inclusive (…)

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Taina Bucher (University of Oslo): Tech Transitions - Presenting AI: Slowing down the future

Date: 25.11.2025 Time: 18:30 Street: Schnoor 27 Location: Bremer Presse-Club Abstract AI promises speed, efficiency, and seamless automation, yet in pursuing these ideals, we risk marginalizing practices and temporalities that matter: slowness, reflection, imperfection, and the capacity to linger. This talk reframes the conversation about AI futures by focusing not only on what is to come, but on what (…)

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New journal article by Andreas Hepp on AI and the digital future

An article by Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp entitled “Approaching digital futures: why media and communication research needs to move from a perspective of consequence to one of emergence” was recently published in the International Communication Association journal “Communication Theory”. In the article, Andreas Hepp makes it clear that communication and media studies should focus more (…)

Funded by DFG (German Research Foundation)FWF Österreichischer Wissenschaftsfonds

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp
ZeMKI, Center for Media, Communication and Information Research University of Bremen

Phone: +49 421 218-67620
Assistent Mrs. Schober: +49 421 218-67603
E-mail: andreas.hepp@uni-bremen.de

Uni BremenZeMKI Uni BremenLeibniz Instituts für Medienforschung | Hans Bredow InstitutUni GrazUni GrazUni Wien