Min's AAAI workshop keynotes (26–27 Jan 2026)

Min gave two invited keynotes at AAAI 2026 workshops on 26 and 27 January, entitled “The Research Manifold” and “Top 5 trends to watch in the future of IR research (and why they are irrelevant)”. Both talks are now available to watch.

26 Jan — The Research Manifold

Min’s first keynote addressed research principles and open challenges for the community.

Imagine research as a complex, multidimensional vector space where human researchers are partially observable points in this space, with vectors of velocity and acceleration mapping, and where their new discoveries and publications mark observations. This research manifold is now being disrupted by the new entrant of artificially intelligent agents and tools. I describe my thoughts on some of the challenges ahead, as we progress to centaur-like human–AI research teams.

Watch the keynote (workshop page with video).

• Get the slides for the talk
• AI for Research Workshop homepage

27 Jan — Top 5 trends to watch in the future of IR research (and why they are irrelevant)

The second keynote highlighted five central themes or open problems in information retrieval.

What are the likely trends in the future of information retrieval for 2026? I discuss five trends, give evidence for their provenance and impact, but you will have heard about many of these trends from previous speakers. Paradoxically, it may be better for some in the field not to follow these trends and I discuss why.

Watch the keynote (YouTube).

• Get the slides for the talk
• Frontier IR Workshop homepage

For other talks, see other WING conference presentations on our group’s YouTube playlist.