This industry-based doctoral position is offered in cooperation between the Human-Centered Systems Lab and Atruvia AG, the central IT and digitalization partner of the German Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken. The research focuses on innovative conversational banking solutions using agentic AI and knowledge graphs. The doctoral project is rooted in Information Systems, with interdisciplinary links to Human-Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence.

Svenja holds a B.A. degree in Business Administration from Hochschule Düsseldorf and an M.Sc. degree in Business Information Systems from the University of Göttingen. During her studies and her work as a student researcher, she gained experience in human-centered information systems research, particularly in the areas of human-AI interaction and digital well-being. In her master's thesis, she investigated how users make sense of algorithmically curated social media feeds in the context of food- and body-related content.

Starting this winter term, Prof. Jella Pfeiffer offers a new class that teaches research methods in information systems (Veranstaltungsnummer 2500075, Monday 2.00 pm - 5.15 pm). This class is helpful for all students who want to write a thesis or seminar in information systems in the WIN institute. The content is coordinated among all WIN-groups and therefore it will help all students, no matter in which research group they finally write their papers or thesis in.

Mental health chatbots are increasingly used to support people with depressive symptoms, and large language models (LLMs) make these systems more flexible than rule-based chatbots. A new study by Florian Onur Kuhlmeier, Leon Hanschmann, Melina Rabe, Stefan Lüttke, Eva-Lotta Brakemeier, and Alexander Maedche, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR) Mental Health, evaluates how well a GPT-4o–based chatbot delivered a behavioral activation intervention for young people with depression using sessions with artificial users and clinical expert assessment.

We are preparing a proposal for a DFG Priority Programme on biosignal-based hybrid intelligence (SYMBIO). The program focuses on how to achieve a symbiosis between humans and AI that balances autonomy, competence, and performance. The program aims to investigate and design human-AI collaboration systems that capture human states based on biosignals - and use this information to decide when the AI ​​should hold back, provide support, or actively call upon human expertise. 

In this summer semester 2026, M.Sc. students of KIT engaged as part of the lecture “Designing Interactive Systems: Human-AI Interaction” in a joint capstone project in collaboration between EnBW’s "Digital & Operations" division and the KIT Institute for Information Systems (WIN).

We are pleased to congratulate Dr.-Ing. Martin Feick and Dr. Felix Kretzer on receiving the Early Career Teaching Award from the KIT Department of Business and Economics for their M.Sc. course Engineering Interactive Systems: AI & Wearables. The award recognizes outstanding teaching by early-career researchers. The course combines wearable sensing, AI, and human-centered design with hands-on project work in collaboration with industry. The redesigned course achieved the maximum Teaching Quality Index (LQI) of 100 and an overall evaluation grade of 1.33.

Luca Bennardo attended the International XR Metaverse Conference in Tallinn, Estonia. He presented two projects from the Information Systems Institute. For one of those projects, Luca Bennardo and Prof. Jella Pfeiffer were awarded the Best Poster Runner-up Award.

At the end of June, researchers from Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Portugal, and the United States came together to discuss current research findings under the theme How are you, democracy? The event was held as part of the SOSEC (Social Sentiment in Times of Crises) research project. In total, 22 scientific posters were presented.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping how people work, make decisions, and interact with one another. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is strategically expanding its research in this field: In spring 2026, Professor Maximilian Förster was appointed Junior Professor for Digital Platforms and Services. His research focuses on how AI can be designed to be comprehensible, reliable, and to deliver tangible benefits to society and the economy.

After three years, our BMWK-funded research project NaiS (Nachhaltige intelligente Sanierungsmaßnahmen, "Sustainable Intelligent Renovation Measures") has come to a successful close, celebrated at the NaiS Summit in the Presidium building of KIT.

Within NaiS, our team from the Digital Service Innovation (DSI) Group at WIN and the KSRI focused on human-centric, explainable, and interactive AI solutions for the digitalization of building documentation, turning hard-to-capture information about existing buildings into structured, reliable, and traceable data.

UIG e.V. has published the results of the first nationwide survey of citizens regarding the user-friendliness of digital services in cities. The survey was conducted in collaboration with the Institute of Information Systems (WIN). 

Digital services have long been a part of everyday life for citizens. Municipal appointments are booked online, applications are prepared digitally, waste collection schedules are accessed via apps, and doctor's appointments are arranged digitally. A systematic nationwide study has now been conducted for the first time to assess how user-friendly these services are actually perceived by citizens.