News

On 5 October 2026, sociologist Elena Esposito gave a ComAI Lecture as part of the research group’s meeting at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI). Prediction is the core principle of generative AI, yet we still lack a theory of prediction. Starting from this observation, Esposito asked what it means when algorithms (…)

At the 43rd Conference of the German Sociological Association (DGS) on the theme “Futures of Society,” the ComAI Research Group is holding two presentations today, on October 1, 2026. Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp (P1) will deliver the presentation “From ‘Quiet’ to ‘Loud’ Futuring: Silicon Valley, Pioneer Communities, and the Cultural Dynamics of Creating AI Futures.”: (…)

In August, Andrea Heisse (P7) presented her PhD research at the 17th ESA conference in Warsaw. Artificial intelligence receives increasing attention from the sociology of professions, raising questions about the algorithmic capacity to make knowledge claims, take over professional tasks, and implicate professional autonomy. In her presentation, Andrea approached these questions, drawing on empirical insights (…)

On 18 September 2026, ComAI PI Christian Katzenbach delivers a keynote at the 11th Annual Conference of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft (KWG), titled “Kritik und Kultur” (Criticism and Culture; 16–19 September 2026, Berlin). His talk is part of the panel “Argumentieren und Erzählen mit KI: Narrative, Rhetoriken und epistemische Praktiken in kommunikativen Aushandlungen” (Arguing and narrating (…)

Rahel Winter won the Best Poster Award at the 11th European Communication Conference (ECC 2026) in Brno. The award was presented during the poster session for early-career researchers, organized by YECREA, the ECREA Young Scholars Network. The audience voted, and Rahel’s poster on her dissertation project about resistance to AI received the most votes. Rahel (…)

What role does conversational artificial intelligence play as a conversation partner in different areas of life and for different generations? Juliane Jarke explores this question in an article in the anniversary issue of “Krone bunt,” which was published on August 30, 2026. In it, Juliane Jarke highlights how naturally communicative AI is now used in (…)

From September 8 to 11, the 11th Conference of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) will take place in Brno (Czech Republic). The conference’s theme is “Paths, Connections, and Futures.” Numerous ZeMKI members will present their research. Overview of presentations featuring our ComAI members: Wednesday, September 9, 2026: 3:00 – 3:15 PMFA I (…)

From July 21 to 24, 2026, the ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI 2026) took place in Bremen. The theme of this year’s conference was “Conversational AI: Agency and Identities!” Laura Spillner and Johanna Rockstroh from Project P2 “Interfaces” served as local chairs on the organizing committee and presented their ongoing research there. 

From July 1 to 3, 2026, the Anticipation Conference took place in Milan, bringing together policymakers, researchers, designers, and practitioners to rethink how ideas about the future operate under conditions of uncertainty and unknowing. Juliane Jarke, Ren Aldridge and Sara Skardelly from the P8 project “Health: Caring through ComAI” presented ongoing research. Juliane Jarke and (…)

On 21 July, the half-day workshop „ADAPTIC: Adapting Dialog and Pragmatic Traits in Context” took place at the ACM Conversational User Interfaces conference (CUI 2026) in Bremen. It was organised and run by our ComAI colleagues Laura Spillner, Johanna Rockstroh, Paula Goerke, Jule Jensen and Jonah Wermter, with contributions from Sara Skardelly, Leonie Winterpacht, Nima (…)

The recent security incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face has sparked an international debate about the safety of autonomous AI agents. In an interview with Helmut van Rinsum of Horizont, Andreas Hepp analyzes the events and discusses their technical, societal, and regulatory implications. Among other topics, the conversation covers the nature of the incident, how (…)

From 16–17 July 2026, the Heidelberg Graduate School for Humanities and Social Sciences held their annual Summer Forum. This year, the theme of the conference was “ImA(I)gining the Future: How Digital Technologies Rewrite Our World.” Selim Başoğlu and Carolin Müller of the project P1 “Pioneer Communities” both presented ongoing research there.  Selim Başoğlu’s talk, titled (…)