Special Track on AI4Tech: AI Enabling Critical Technologies
Important Dates
Abstract submission deadline: January 12, 2026
Author information and Full paper submission deadline (including Appendix and resubmission information): January 19, 2026
Summary reject notification: March 4, 2026
Paper notification: April 29, 2026
Conference: Saturday, August 15 to Friday, August 21, 2026.
(all times are 23:59 Anywhere On Earth, UTC-12)
We invite your original quality submissions to the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Special Track on AI4Tech: AI Enabling Critical Technologies. The AI4Tech Track aims to consolidate and promote advanced AI transforming critical new- and next-generation technologies.
About AI4Tech
Complementing AI for Science (AI4Science), AI for technologies (AI4Tech) refers to the synergy between AI and technologies, where AI meets, enables and transforms technologies over domains, time, and generations. This AI4Tech ecosystem has been intensified with the advancement of any AI paradigms (X-AI), in particular, human-like, analytical, generative and multimodal decentralized, physical, digital, virtual, humanoid, metaverse, behavioral, and emotional AI. Such AI advances further transform and translate any critical technologies (X-Tech) that cannot be addressed by non-AI methodologies and technologies, going beyond direct applications of AI to specific domains. Throughout the AI history, the roles of AI4Tech have been increasingly augmented towards developing and advancing critical, new- and next-generation technological ecosystems.
AI4Tech synergizes AI and technologies for both general and domain-specific purposes and areas. The general AI4Tech ecosystem incorporates human intelligence, natural intelligence, cyber intelligence, physical intelligence, and social intelligence etc. into developing new technologies, such as AI chips, AI agents, AI humanoids/robots, AI drones, AI computers, AI vehicles, AI personal assistants, AI web systems, AI medicine, and AI office software. Specifically, domain-specific AI4Tech ecosystem encompasses X-AI to specific domains and applications, driving domain-specific technologies. As a result, AI4Tech has spanned over a wide spectrum of domain-specific AI4Tech areas, such as AI for health (AI4Health or HealthAI), AI for medicine (AI4Medicine, AI4Med, or MedAI), AI for biology (AI4Biology, AI4Bio, or BioAI) AI for finance (AI4Finance, AI4Fin, or FinAI), AI for banking (AI4Banking, AI4Bank, or BankAI), AI for payment (AI4Payment, AI4Pay, or PayAI), AI for manufacturing (AI4Manufacturing, AI4Manu, or ManuAI), AI for transport (AI4Transport, AI4Trans, or TransAI), AI for agriculture (AI4Agriculture, AI4Agri, or AgriAI), AI for smart city (AI4City or CityAI), AI for arts (AI4Arts or ArtsAI), AI for security (AI4Security, AI4Secure, or SecureAI), AI for safety (AI4Safety, AI4Safe, or SafeAI) and AI for regulation (AI4Regulation, AI4Reg, or RegAI). Consequently, AI4Tech also fosters new AI areas and advances, including cyber AI, physical AI, humanoid AI, metaverse AI, virtual AI, wireless AI, social AI, and domain-driven AI.
Topics of Interest
Following the great success of AI4Tech at IJCAI 2025, the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Special Track on AI4Tech: AI Enabling Critical Technologies aims to promote the development and demonstrations of both general and domain-specific AI4Tech ecosystems and focus on critical, new- and next-generation AI4Tech. Original and significant theoretical and technical submissions satisfying the following are welcome:
- Emerging AI4Tech theories, foundations, methods and systems enabled by human-like, humanoid, natural, physical, and social AI and intelligence
- Advanced AI4Tech theories, methods and systems enabling generative, decentralized, humanoid, physical, digital, virtual, metaverse, behavioral, emotional, and multimodal AI and intelligent technical systems and services
- General AI4Tech theories, systems and software, such as original and significant advances for AI agents, AI robots, AI drones, AI chips, AI computers, AI personal assistants, AI vehicles, AI web systems, and AI office software
- Domain-specific AI4Tech methods and significant applications, such as advancing AI4Manufacturing, AI4Health, AI4Care, AI4Medicine, AI4Finance, AI4Economy, AI4Transport, AI4Agriculture, AI4Grain, AI4Social, AI4Arts, AI4Education, AI4Security, AI4Safety and AI4Regulation
- Visionary surveys, reviews, and expert opinions on critical, new- and next-generation AI4Tech; and
- Sound and visionary discussion on emerging AI4Tech areas and research.
This special track is NOT on specific AI applications, rather focusing on promoting AI-enabled original, significant and critical general and domain-focused technologies. Therefore, submissions only applying AI to specific problems and domains but without original, significant AI4Tech developments may be desk rejected.
Primary Paper Initiative: IJCAI-ECAI 2026 is launching the Primary Paper Initiative in response to the international AI research community’s call to address challenges and to revitalize the peer review process, while strengthening the reviewers and authors in the process. Under the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 Primary Paper Initiative, every submission is subject to a fee of USD 100. That paper submission fee is waived for primary papers, i.e., papers for which none of the authors appear as an author on any other submission to IJCAI-ECAI 2026. The initiative applies to the main track, Survey Track, and all special tracks,excluding the Journal Track, the Sister Conferences Track, Early Career Highlights, Competitions, Demos, and the Doctoral Consortium. All proceeds generated from the Primary Paper Initiative will be exclusively directed toward the support of the reviewing community of IJCAI-ECAI 2026. To recognize the reviewers’ contributions, the initiative introduces Peer Reviewer Recognition Policy with clearly defined standards (which will be published on the conference web site). The initiative aims to enhance review quality, strengthen accountability, and uphold the scientific excellence of the conference. Details and the FAQ will be published on the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 website.
Submissions
Research papers are submitted with the same format and following all the Submission Requirements described in general and detailed instructions as for the main conference (https://2026.ijcai.org). Papers are expected to satisfy the highest scientific standards as submissions to the main track of IJCAI-ECAI 2026 and satisfy double-blind review conditions. Double submissions to the special track and main conference are not allowed. Differing from the main track, there will be no phase 1 notification and author rebuttal.
Page limit: Papers must be no longer than 9 pages in total: 7 pages for the body of the paper and 2 pages for references; an optional ethics statement can be placed either in the body of the paper or in the reference pages.
Participation in the conference: At least one author of each accepted paper must participate in the conference at Bremen and present the work. We are looking forward to the community meeting in person. Papers not presented in person will be excluded from the proceedings unless one of the authors provides notification of exceptional circumstances to IJCAI via pcchair@2026.ijcai.org. Any such exceptional circumstances must receive prior approval from IJCAI.
Ethics policy and ethics statement: IJCAI is committed to the highest standards of research integrity. Submissions must adhere to fundamental ethical principles, including the responsible use of datasets (respecting privacy, copyright, and informed consent) and mitigating potential societal harms (such as risks to safety, and issues related to discrimination and bias).
Consistent with the previous editions of the conference, IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will implement a streamlined ethics review policy. Reviewers will be asked to flag glaring violations of ethical principles. Such flagged submissions will be reviewed by the Ethics Chair. In rare situations, the Program Chair, advised by the Ethics Chair, reserves the right to reject a submission on ethical grounds. However, we anticipate that the primary approach to addressing ethical concerns will require authors to revise their submissions to include a discussion that identifies these concerns and proposes strategies for their mitigation.
Authors can include in the main body of their paper, or on the reference pages, an ethics statement that addresses both ethical issues regarding the research being reported and the broader ethical impact of the work. Note that such an ethics statement is not required, but we recommend that papers working with sensitive data or on sensitive tasks include such discussion. The IJCAI review form will include a section asking reviewers and ACs to flag any serious ethical concerns.
Conflict of interest policy: All individuals involved in the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 review process must adhere to the IJCAI conflict of interest policy. Details can be found at https://www.ijcai.org/IJCAI_Conflict_of_Interest_Policy.pdf. All authors of papers submitted to IJCAI-ECAI 2026 agree to be bound by the conditions outlined in this call for papers (w.r.t. multiple submissions, authorship, resubmission policy, submission limit, etc.). Authors and reviewers acknowledge that IJCAI may take action against individuals in breach of the conflict of interest and call for papers policies, including – but not limited to – rejecting their submissions without further review and banning individuals from submitting their work to a limited number of IJCAI conferences in the future.
Confidentiality policy: All submissions will be handled with strict confidentiality until their publication date.
Submission Process
Formatting guidelines: The updated LaTeX styles and Word template are available at https://www.ijcai.org/authors_kit.
Submission site: https://chairingtool.com/conferences/IJCAIECAI2026/ai4tech?role=author by choosing the track named ‘AI4Tech: AI Enabling Critical Technologies’.
Author Information: Full papers must be submitted through the same site by the paper submission deadline. The list of author names provided at the Author Information Deadline is final. Authors may not be added to or removed from papers following submission. (The author’s ordering may still be changed during the camera-ready period.) Providing accurate author details is essential for managing the paper workflow process. Therefore, all authors must register and fill out the author information form on the submission site by the Author Information deadline. Please note that ORCID is now compulsory! Submissions may be rejected without review if any co-author fails to register and submit the necessary information.
Submission limit: IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will enforce a strict submission limit. Each author is limited to no more than 8 submissions to IJCAI-ECAI 2026.
Accepted research papers will be included in the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 proceedings.
Preprints: The existence of non-anonymous preprints (on arXiv, social media, websites, etc.) and prior publication in non-archival venues will not result in rejection. Note that the submission to IJCAI-ECAI 2026 must always be anonymized regardless of whether a preprint has been released. Reviewers will be instructed not to look for such preprints actively, but encountering them will not constitute a conflict of interest.
Reproducibility: Authors must follow the reproducibility guidelines(available here) and checklist at the time of paper submission.
Dual submissions: IJCAI-ECAI 2026 will not accept any paper that, at the time of full paper submission, is under review for, has already been published in or has already been accepted for publication in a journal or another venue with formally published proceedings. Authors of IJCAI-ECAI 2026 submissions are also not permitted to submit their paper to a journal or another venue with formally published proceedings during the IJCAI-ECAI 2026 review period. (As a guideline, authors should regard publications with a DOI, ISBN, or ISSN as formal publications.
Track Chairs
Longbing Cao, Macquarie University, Australia
Qiang Yang, Hongkong University of Science and Technology, China
Usama Fayyad, Northeastern University, USA
Track Workflow Chair
Xiangmin Zhou, RMIT University, Australia
Enquiries
Please also refer to AI4Tech.Org for additional information on AI4Tech. All enquiries about this special track on AI4Tech must be sent to ai4tech@2026.ijcai.org.