Conversational AI

• How can customers embed and integrate AI services from different providers in their own ecosystem?
  
• How can intelligent workflows facilitate automating routine business processes?
  
  
• How can companies employ conversational interfaces and virtual customer assistants to interact with customers?
  
  
• How can firms utilize AI-based customer analytics to anticipate customer needs and develop personalized offerings?
  
  

Industry 4.0

• What is the next step for AI applications beyond predictive maintenance?
  
  
• How can AI systems support intelligent machine configuration?
  
  
• How can AI help collect and analyse factory data to reliably obtain filtered results? Think here, for example, of real-time analysis, cross-vendor data analysis, and cross-platform analysis?
  
  
• How can AI help foster human-machine-interaction in the connected factory?
  
  
• Will AI take over the smart factory? How will such a future look like?

Intelligent Automation

• How are big data and AI transforming business processes?
  
  
• Which business departments do benefit from intelligent automation?
  
  
• What concrete advantages could be achieved by applying intelligent automation? Best-practice examples!
  
  
• How can companies develop successful strategies to introduce intelligent automation?

Energy, Finance & Mobility

Energy

• What challenges do AI and big data technologies address in the area of smart energy? What are the most promising use cases and pilot projects?
  
  
• How can AI be used to optimise the management of critical infrastructures?
  
  
• How can data science be applied to improve smart metering (from the standard load profile to modern consumption forecasts)?
  
  
• How can energy providers enhance efficiency using AI and big data? How can those technologies be employed to improve forecasting procedures?
  
  
• How can smart data empower service platforms for the energy system of the future?

Finance

• How can we employ big data and AI to systematically analyse complex data in the finance and insurance sector? 
  
  
• How can machine learning be used to detect suspicious patterns in high-frequency real-time financial data streams?
  
  
• How are big data and AI changing asset and wealth management? 
  
  
• How will big data and AI change customer experience in the financial sector? 
  
  
• What role will AI and big data play in future identification and authorization processes? 

Mobility

• What new potential for mobility business models does AI unlock? 
  
  
• How does AI support human drivers? How far can AI go in taking over human tasks?
  
  
• How should AI-driven autonomous cars decide in dilemma situations?
  
  
• How can synergies be realized between connected cars and smart cities?
  
  
• What business opportunities are there in the area of vehicle data analysis?

Digital Health

• What role can big data and AI play in prevention and the early detection of health problems?
  
  
• How can big data and AI increase the efficiency and quality of diagnosis? 
  
  
• How can data-driven research take the medical and pharmaceutical research to the next frontier?
  
  
• How will smart hospitals, AI-driven administrative processes and AI-based therapies change our healthcare experience? 
  
  
• How will big data and AI help tailor therapies to individual needs and conditions?

Retail & Logistics

• How does big data and AI help optimise processes along the value chain in the retail and logistics sector? 
  
  
• How will AI-based systems change client communication and redefine customer experience? 
  
  
• What new business models are developing thanks to the use of big data and AI in the retail and logistics sector?
  
  
• How will AI influence multi-channel-management?
  
  
• What are the benefits of using AI in the supply chain?

Data Protection and Security

Data Protection

• How can companies apply AI and still abide by new data protection regulations, like the GDPR? 
  
  
• How can we apply machine learning in a transparent way? 
  
  
• Does AI create solutions or rather problems for privacy by design? 
  
  
• How to balance data protection for end-users, corporate digital responsibility and the application of big data and AI?
  
  
• Data protection does not work without data security. How can we secure the use of AI and big data with technical and organizational measures? 

Security

• How can machine learning be used to detect anomalies in network data? 
  
  
• How can AI systems augment human potential in the area of threat detection?
  
  
• How can antivirus developers apply ML-based methods to flexibly look for malware characteristics instead of specific signatures?
  
  
• What are the newest approaches in Machine Learning?
  
  
• What are the latest threats in Machine Learning?

Ethics and Society

• Under which circumstances would it be unethical not to use AI?
  
  
• What does a responsible application of automated decisions require? 
  
  
• How much room for experimentation does development need? 
  
  
• Can the safety of critical AI applications be guaranteed by leaving the final decision to humans?

Science Fiction

• Why do science fiction scenarios about AI and robots tend to be gloomy and negative? 
  
  
• Should AI-powered machines be equipped with a code of conduct they cannot violate? How should it look like?
  
  
• What insights does social science fiction offer about future societies?
  
  
• What are the most provocative questions posed by sci-fi authors in the areas of AI and big data?