News

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.

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.

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.

The language barrier remains a significant impediment to seamless global communication, a challenge particularly pronounced within multilingual communities and institutions such es EU or UN. Recent advancements in AI have led to the increasing availability and use of automatic speech translation tools. However, current tools still seem to fall short of fully supporting people to overcome language barriers in everyday life, showing a gap between improvements as measured by computer scientists and as perceived by end users.  

Climate adaptation protects local infrastructure, improves citizens' quality of life, and makes municipalities more attractive for investment—yet a lack of expertise, limited resources, and fragmented information often hinder the development of effective adaptation strategies. To address these challenges, the AI-powered climate adaptation system "Ada" is being developed at the human-centered systems lab (https://h-lab.win.kit.edu/) in collaboration with the non-profit organization UIG e.V. (https://nutzerfreundlich.digital/).

On June 4th 2026, Prof. Alexander Maedche from the human-centered systems lab of the Institute for Information systems (WIN) gave a keynote at the EUNIS 2026 Congress in Timisoara, Romania.The keynote was titled „The Rise of Personalized Learning Companions: Where Subject-Matter Tutoring meets Self-Management“. This keynote explores the potential of personalized learning companions that combine subject-matter tutoring with self-management support. Drawing on advances in generative AI, biosignal sensing, and multimodal human-computer interaction, it discusses how future learning companions can dynamically adapt to individual learners throughout the entire learning journey to foster engagement and improve learning success.

The Decision Support Systems (DSS) Journal has published the paper "Effective use of open data story authoringportals for enterprises".social good: Design principles for explainable LLM-based open data assistants". The paper is co-authored Till Carlo Schelhorn, Ulrich Gnewuch, and Alexander Maedche from the Institute for Information Systems (WIN), human-centered systems lab (h-lab) and the University of Passau.

Public access to information through open data is critical for achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 16, which promotes accountable and inclusive institutions. However, open data portals often present barriers, such as complex user interfaces and large data catalogs.

Bachelor's and master's students studying information systems (IS) at KIT can apply for an IS scholarship. The scholarship will start on October 1st, 2026 and will run for 12 months. Scholarship holders are supported with 300 Euros per month. The scholarship is awarded by the non-profit association "Die Wirtschaftsinformatik e.V." and serves to promote young people in the field of IS. The scholarship is funded by companies that provide the financial support and are involved in the awarding of the scholarship. For the 2025/26 period, overall seven IS scholarships will be awarded at KIT: 3 scholarships from Schwarz Digits KG, 2 scholarships from SAP SE, and 2 scholarships from Atruvia AG. Further information on the scholarships is available via: https://wirtschaftsinformatik.de/community/stipendien-wirtschaftsinformatik/