IJCAI 2025 – Artificial Intelligence for a Better World
From August 16 to 22, 2025, Montreal, Canada will host the 34th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI). Since 1969, IJCAI has been a leading platform to present advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), making it the longest-running AI conference globally. The central theme remains “AI at the service of society,” emphasizing AI’s role in addressing societal challenges.
This year, the conference expects over 2,000 participants. Gilles Pesant, Local Arrangements Committee Chair and professor at Polytechnique Montréal, leads the event locally. Known for his work in constraint programming and neuro-symbolic AI, Pesant highlights IJCAI's strength in bringing together diverse AI research areas and providing Canadian researchers an opportunity to share their work on an international stage.
Canada’s AI Leadership
2025 marks 30 years since the introduction of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture, a significant milestone enabling machines to learn from sequences like speech and language. Although LSTM was not developed in Canada, the country’s AI community played a crucial role during the “AI winter,” a period when neural networks saw reduced interest worldwide.
Canadian pioneers such as Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio pushed deep learning forward despite skepticism. Their continued efforts helped establish Canada as a global leader in AI research, supported by institutions like MILA, Vector Institute, AMII, IVADO, and the Canadian AI Safety Institute.
Keynote Speakers
- Yoshua Bengio – A Turing Award recipient and a deep learning pioneer, Bengio is a professor at Université de Montréal and founder of Mila, one of the largest AI research labs worldwide.
- Heng Ji – Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, known for her work on knowledge extraction from unstructured data and her contributions to AI ethics and policy.
- Luc De Raedt – KU Leuven professor and director of Leuven.AI, focusing on integrating machine learning with symbolic reasoning. His talk will cover neurosymbolic AI.
- Bernhard Schölkopf – Director at the Max Planck Institute, co-founder of ELLIS, delivering insights on machine learning applications in science and causal digital twins.
Additionally, IJCAI 2025 will feature talks by awardees such as Aditya Grover, Rina Dechter, and Cynthia Rudin, recognized for their outstanding contributions to AI research.
Scientific Program Highlights
The conference program is structured around AI’s role in research and societal impact:
- AI, Arts & Creativity: Exploring AI’s role in music, design, storytelling, and architecture.
- Human-Centred AI: Addressing challenges in aligning AI systems with human values, including ethical and societal considerations.
- AI for Social Good: Focusing on AI solutions for global challenges, supporting initiatives aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
- AI4Tech: Showcasing AI-driven innovations across sectors like health, finance, mobility, and smart cities.
The event also hosts AI competitions such as Deepfake Detection, Drinking Water Chlorination, and Pulmonary Fibrosis Segmentation challenges, reflecting applied AI’s current priorities.
An AI Art Gallery will display works that explore machine agency and vulnerability through AI, robotics, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).
The public program includes an open discussion titled AI Lounge: Between Wonder and Caution – Insights from Three Experts, featuring Heng Ji, Kate Larson, and Cynthia Rudin.
To assist authors facing Canadian visa challenges, a satellite event will be held in Guangzhou, China, from August 29 to 31, 2025.
Organizers and Institutional Support
- Conference Chair: Shlomo Zilberstein, University of Massachusetts, Amherst / USA
- Program Chair: James Kwok, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology / China
- Local Arrangements Committee Chair: Gilles Pesant, Polytechnique Montréal / Canada
- Local Publicity Chair: Lina Marsso, Polytechnique Montréal / MILA / Canada
- Sponsorship / Exhibit / Industry Day Chair: Nancy Laramée, IVADO, Canada
- Lead Student Journalist on Social Media: Liliane-Caroline Demers, Polytechnique Montréal
- Webmaster: Mehil Shah, Dalhousie University, Canada
The conference is supported by sponsors including the Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ), Palais des Congrès de Montréal (Diamond Sponsor), GMI Cloud, FinVolution Group, Baidu, and Ant Research (Silver Sponsors).
Media Access and Accreditation
The conference welcomes journalists. For media inquiries, contact Mihaela Rozman at mrozman@ijcai.org.
For further details, visit the official IJCAI 2025 website: https://2025.ijcai.org/
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