Event Recap: KI Symposium 2025

The 2025 LMU KI-Symposium, organized by the AI-HUB@LMU on 10 November 2025, was a huge success. It took place in the Große Aula of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität – our more than 800 registrations demonstrate the immense interest in the topic of AI. We were happy to share this exciting evening with so many guests from LMU, other scientific affiliations, politics, industry, and the public.

Welcome Remarks

After a warm welcome by Prof. Dr. Gitta Kutyniok, spokesperson of the AI-HUB@LMU, the official program began with welcome remarks from Prof. Dr. Julia Dittrich, Vice President for Digital Strategies at LMU, and Dr. Christian Scharpf, Head of Labor and Economic Affairs for the State Capital of Munich. Both highlighted how cutting-edge AI research at LMU will contribute to shaping the future of AI in Munich, with a particular focus on the newly appointed AI professors who gave pitch talks and were honored for their contributions.

Focus on AI at LMU

Prof. Dr. Björn Ommer, newly appointed Chief AI Officer at LMU and Head of the Computer Vision and Learning Group, opened the scientific program with an engaging keynote on “The Transformative Power of AI: From Information to Knowledge Society” that showcased the fantastic opportunities generative AI offers – if we want and if we control it.

After that, LMU’s new Vice Presidents Dr. Philipp Baaske, Prof. Dr. Julia Dittrich, and Prof. Dr. Jochen Kuhn took to the stage for a panel discussion moderated by Prof. Dr. Frauke Kreuter, spokesperson of the AI-HUB@LMU, on the status quo, digital strategies, and the future vision in the field of AI at LMU.

Faculty Highlights AI Across LMU: Pitch Talks

The focal points of the annual LMU KI Symposium are the pitch talks by newly appointed AI-focused professors. In two blocks, they gave the audience insight into their research and introduced themselves and their work in AI. This year's appointments demonstrate the enormous thematic breadth of AI research at LMU—with contributions from medicine, physics, statistics, biochemistry, and management.

• Prof. Dr. Jörg Drechsler (Professor of Data Collection and Data Science in Labor Market Research)

• Prof. Dr. Björn Eskofier (Chair of AI-Supported Therapy Decisions)

• Prof. Dr. Carsten Marr (Full Professorship of Artificial Intelligence in Cell Therapy and Hematology)

• Prof. Dr. Anne-Sophie Mayer (Professor of Digital Work)

• Prof. Dr. Lukas Milles (Professor of Computational Biochemistry and Protein Design)

• Prof. Dr. Falk Schwendicke (Clinic for Conservative Dentistry and Periodontology, University Hospital of the LMU Munich)

• Prof. Dr. Lalith Kumar Shiyam Sundar (Professorship of Digital Transformation in Radiology)

Presentation of the AI-HUB@LMU Prizes 2025

The event continued with the presentation of the 2025 AI-HUB@LMU Prizes, generously sponsored by the Münchener Universitätsgesellschaft (MUG). Prof. Dr. Dr. Peter Höppe, Chairman MUG, and Prof. Dr. Alexander Wuttke, Head of the Prize Committee, awarded the following prizes:

Best Master’s Thesis in AI

• Frederic Kuhwald (Faculty of Economics): Predicting technology trends: Measuring conceptional relatedness across text-domains

Most Innovative AI-Based Research Projects

• Dr. Alexandra Fetsch (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine): OASIS: One Health Artificial Intelligence for Systematic Intervention Strategies against Antimicrobial Resistance

• Judith Zellner (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences): AI-Generated Simulation for Case-Based Diagnostic Training in Special Education: Structured Click Game vs. Expert Discussion with an AI-Generated Teacher Avatar

From Lab to Impact: AI Transfer at LMU

The evening concluded with the presentation of the transfer activities at LMU by Prof. Dr. Jelena Spanjol, Head of the LMU Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center and Co-Lead of the AI-HUB@LMU Task Force “AI and Innovation/Transfer”. She then introduced Moritz Koch and Johannes Strodel, co-founders of “AIcendence”, who presented their start-up, which had emerged from the LMU Innovation Incubator. They developed Cyto-ML, an AI-supported software that enables automated cytological evaluations, and their start-up is a prime example of a success story in research transfer at LMU.

A reception followed this inspiring scientific program in the Lichthof of the LMU Main Building, where our guests, with their diverse backgrounds, engaged in lively conversation about the exciting presentations and the future of AI.