AI Everywhere, All at Once 

AI4LAM’s annual conference, December 3 – 5, 2025, British Library, London 

The British Library and the Programme Committee for the Fantastic Futures 2025 conference are delighted to invite proposals for presentations and workshops. Submissions are invited from colleagues around the world about organisations, collections, interest and experience with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies applied to or developed with cultural, research and heritage collections. This includes practitioners in the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) sector and Digital Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Data, Information and Computer Science researchers in Higher Education. 

Key dates 

• Call for proposals shared: Thursday 13 March 2025 

• Conference submission via ConfTool opens: 19 May 2025 

• Proposal submission deadline: midnight anywhere, Sunday 1 June 2025 

• Notification of acceptance: w/c 4 August 2025 

• Conference registration: opens 22 September 2025 via ConfTool

• Draft Conference Programme: 22 September 2025 via ConfTool

• Full conference programme available: 3 October 2025 via ConfTool

• Conference dates: December 3 – 5, 2025 

• Location: British Library, London, onsite – with some livestreams and post-event videos 

FF2025 Theme: AI Everywhere, All at Once 

We invite presentations on the theme of 'AI Everywhere, All at Once’. While AI has a long history in academia and practice, the release of public language models like ChatGPT propelled AI into public consciousness. The sudden appearance of AI ‘tools’ in the software we use every day, government consultations on AI and copyright and the hype about Artificial Intelligence mean that libraries, museums and archives must understand what AI means for them. Should they embrace it, resist it or fear it? How does it relate to existing practices and services, how can it help or undermine staff, and how do we keep up with rapid changes in the field? 

There are many opportunities and many challenges in delivering AI that create rich, delightful and immersive experiences of GLAM collections and spaces for the public, and meet the needs of researchers for relevant, reliable and timely information. Challenges range from the huge – environmental and economic sustainability, ensuring alignment with our missions, ethical and responsible AI, human-centred AI, ensuring value for money – to the practical – evaluation, scalability, cyber security, multimodal collections – and throughout it all, managing the pace of change. 

Our aim is to promote interdisciplinary conversations that foster broader understandings of AI methods, practices and technologies and enable critical reflections about collaborative approaches to research and practice. 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) 

Please note these FAQs will be updated as we continue to finalise the conference programme and arrangements. 

Registration 

We expect the conference to sell out, presenters were given priority access to the ticket booking system and should ensure that they have completed their bookings before general registration opens on 22 September 2025 (once general registration opens presenters will need to update their booking to add workshops or social events). Tickets will be £280 and payment can only be made via debit/credit card using PayPal as the payment agent, PayPal registration should not be necessary and you should be able to be a guest user. 

Workshop registration 

Workshop registration for the 3rd December will open at the same time general registration opens. 

Social events 

Official social events include an evening reception. Booking is required and will be available at the same time general registration opens. 

We are also looking into sharing information about restaurants and other venues for self-organised dinners etc. 

Social media 

The event hashtag is #FF2025 on whichever platforms you use.  

If you’d like to tag us, we’re @bldigischol.bsky.social‬ and @britishlibrary.bsky.social‬ on BlueSky; @BL_DigiSchol@techhub.social and @AI4LAM@glammr.us on Mastodon. 

Livestreaming for remote viewers 

All talks on Thursday and Friday will be livestreamed to registered participants. They will also be recorded and posted on AI4LAM’s YouTube channel following the conference. You must register in advance for access to the livestream; remote attendance is free of charge. 

Accessibility and the video feed 

The video feed will have live captions written by human transcribers. To help them get the names of people and technical concepts right, we’ll provide them with the conference abstracts and your slides. 

We’ll need your slides at least 10 days in advance of the conference so the transcription service has sufficient time to review them and so that they can be preloaded onto the podium computer for a smooth transition between speakers. 

Travel bursaries 

Unfortunately, as much as we’d like to, we can't offer travel bursaries or registration fee discounts for presenters. We can provide some information to support any applications you make for funding elsewhere. 

Venue information 

General information on the British Library is available at https://www.bl.uk/visit 

Please note that all our spaces are wheelchair accessible, and we can provide digital and audiovisual support as needed, see https://www.bl.uk/visit for more information. 

Catering information 

Lunch is provided on Thursday and Friday, and each day has catered tea/coffee breaks. Lunch is not provided on Wednesday when the workshops are held. There's a conference reception, but no conference dinner.  

London has a huge range of dining options, and we'll try to set up ways for conference attendees to self-organise dinners in small groups. 

Depending on your hotel choices, breakfast is likely to be included in the daily rate, or there are affordable options for breakfast around the British Library. 

Hotels, Travel, and Free Time 

Guidance on getting here, where to stay, and what to do if you should find yourself with some free time. There is no specific conference hotels recommended. The Kings Cross and St Pancras area is a major transport hub and has many accommodation options at different price points within walking distance. Due to the excellent transport options available, it would also be possible to stay elsewhere and travel by public transport, you can use the Transport for London Journey Planner to help get around. 

Can I get a letter of invitation for visa applications or certificates of attendance? 

Once registered on the ConfTool system you will be able to download a letter of invitation, and following the conference attendees can download a certificate of attendance. 

What are the new UK entry requirements? 

Please note a new UK entry requirement from 2025 for those coming from outside the United Kingdom and Ireland, you will need an Electronic Travel Authorisation. Please read the following guide for more information regarding who needs an ETA and how to apply on the UK Visas and Immigration website. Authorisations take 3-5 business days to process and you must apply before your travel date. 

Key information for presenters 

We had many more proposals than we expected, and so many were of an exceptionally high quality that putting the programme together took longer than expected, and we had to shift many proposals into a different format.  

Please finalise your proposal abstract in Conftool before Friday October 3. Abstracts will be published on this date. 

Prepare to share your presentations in advance 

Presentations in the main auditorium (i.e. not workshops) will be run from a shared device on the podium. You will be asked to share your slides a minimum of 10 days in advance for the live transcribers to review and so that the AV team can check them. Instructions on how to do this will follow. 

Slides must be in 16:9 format. If you use any non-standard fonts or embedded videos please ensure that they are included in the file. PowerPoints created on Google Drive often use fonts not supported by Windows-based PowerPoint installations. In such cases, please provide the fonts separately. 

Clearly mark any embedded videos, audio files, or special cues when submitting your slides. 

We will compile all the slides for a given session into one file to reduce changeover time at the podium so please finalise your slides the day before your presentation. 

Please include both the day, presentation time and the presenter’s name in the filename. Use 24-hour time format to ensure files are correctly ordered, for example: 1430-1530-Jane Bloggs-Talking About the Industry.pptx 

On-the-Day Control and Cueing of Your Presentation 

We will provide a clicker for you to advance your slides. 

At the stage lectern, there is a foldback display monitor (also known as a confidence screen), usually set to Extended View, which will display your presenter notes if included. 

There is also a stage foldback monitor that mirrors the same extended desktop. 

Long and short presentations 

Long (30 minute) and short (15 minute) talks include time for Q&A e.g. a long presentation of 20 minutes would allow 10 minutes for Q&A.  

Long and short presentations may have multiple presenters, but the time limits remain the same. Please note that panel format has been withdrawn. 

Lightning talks 

These short, sharp talks are an opportunity to share a request for collaboration, throw out a provocation, or direct people to an online demo. They’re designed to help start conversations at the conference, making the most of in-person attendance. 

Lightning talk sessions don’t include time for questions, so please include contact information in your slides for remote attendees and for follow-ups outside the conference. 

Remote presentations 

We have limited capacity to support remote presenters, in exceptional circumstances e.g. serious budget, health or visa issues that prevent travel to the UK. Please get in touch to discuss.  

We will ask you to pre-record and share a version of your talk and to be available for Q&A (for long and short presentations). Ideally you would be able to present live, leaving the pre-recorded talk as backup in case of connection issues. 

Unfortunately it’s not possible to present posters as a remote-only option, as we're only equipped for poster presenters being able to discuss their posters in-person. 

Poster sessions 

Posters are assigned to either a Thursday or a Friday session. Posters will be up in a breakout room all day, and ideally poster authors would be able to answer questions about their posters in the lunch break on their assigned day. 

We will encourage conference attendees to visit the posters over lunchtime. Poster presenters will be able to ‘queue-jump’ to get their lunch before other attendees on the day their poster is on display so that they can be by their posters over the lunch break. 

The poster size is A1 in portrait orientation.  

We would also encourage poster authors to upload their poster to a repository for sharing with online attendees. 

Publishing your slides 

The British Library Research Repository may be able to host copies of your slides. You can also post them on sites like Zenodo or the Knowledge Commons https://hcommons.org.

Questions? 

Please drop us a line at FF2025@bl.uk  

Call for Proposals

Themes   

We’re particularly interested in proposals that cover these themes:   

• Ethical and Responsible AI 

• Human-Centred AI / the UX of AI 

• Trust, AI literacy and society 

• Building AI systems for and with staff and users 

• Cyber-security and resilience 

• Interoperability and standards  

• FAIR, CARE, rights and copyright

• Benchmarking AI / machine learning 

• Regional, national, international approaches to AI 

• Environmental sustainability  

Formats for presentations (Thursday, Friday December 4-5) 

• Lightning talk: 5 mins - These might pitch an idea, call for collaborators, throw out a provocation or just provide a short update 

• Poster  - Perfect for project updates – what went well, what would you do differently, what lessons can others take? 

• Short presentation: 15 mins   

• Long presentation: 30 mins 

• Panel: 45 mins, multiple presenters with short position statements then discussion (withdrawn)

Formats for workshops or group sessions (Wednesday December 3) 

• Formal, instructor-led sessions, including working groups, tutorials, hands-on workshops – 1 or 2 hours 

• Informal, unstructured sessions, including unconferences, meetups, hacking – 1 or 2 hours 

• Digital showcase (demo): 30 mins 

We value the interactions that an in-person event enables, so the default mode for this event is in-person presentations. However, if your proposal is accepted for inclusion in the conference but you are not able to travel to London, we can consider arrangements for making a virtual presentation on a case-by-case basis. Please contact the Programme Committee at FF2025@bl.uk to discuss. 

The conference will be held over three days: one day of workshops and other events, and two days of formal sessions. The social programme will include opportunities for informal networking.  

Plenary sessions on Thursday and Friday will be livestreamed, recorded and published. 

Call for papers FAQs

Do you require abstracts or full submissions for proposals? 

This conference uses abstracts rather than full papers to review submissions. 

What information is required to submit a proposal? 

All proposals need to include: 

Authors, affiliations, title, 3 – 5 keywords, category (e.g. poster, short presentation, etc), relevant conference theme. 

Workshops or working group sessions will also need to nominate the workshop format (formal, informal, showcase). 

Each proposal also needs an abstract. The abstract length depends on the format nominated: 

• Lightning talk: 300 – 500 words, including any key references 

• Poster: 300 – 500 words, including any key references  

• Short presentation: 750 – 1000 words, including any key references  

• Long presentation: 1000 – 1500 words, including any key references 

• Panel: 1000 – 1500 words including an overview and short position statements from each panellist and any key references 

• Workshops: 1000 – 1500 words including an overview, proposed resources required and anything attendees need to know in advance, planned outcomes, and additional information about instructors and/or the working group if relevant. 

What are reviewers looking for when reviewing proposals? 

Please note that the Programme Committee may suggest that your proposal is accepted in a different format than the one you suggested e.g. a long presentation may be accepted as a short presentation. Reviewers will be using the following headings: 

Relevance to theme (25%) 

• How relevant is the work to the conference themes cited? 

Innovation and significance to the GLAM sector (25%) 

• Are the technical or practical innovations clearly articulated? 

• How significantly will this work change future research and practice in the field? 

• Is it clear how the digital research was conducted or how the digital methodology was applied in the GLAM sector?  

• Are any limitations of the work acknowledged and discussed? 

Presentation (25%) 

• Are research questions and major findings clearly articulated? 

• Are the ideas, methods, results, and discussions well-presented?s the proposal logically structured?  

• Is any domain-specific terminology and methodology explained for a diverse AI4LAM audience? 

Overall evaluation (25%) 

• Summary of overall evaluation 

Workshops and working groups

We aren’t able to provide any equipment or special network access for workshops or working group sessions. Free public Wi-Fi is available in the conference centre. If you have questions about this, please get in touch. 

Do you publish proceedings? 

The conference page with abstracts will remain online, but we don’t publish peer-reviewed proceedings with full papers. 

What if my project changes between acceptance and the conference? 

We understand that this is a rapidly evolving field. As long as you address the main topic of your accepted proposal, it’s fine if your methods or tools have evolved in the meantime. 

Find out more and get updates 

• Join the AI4LAM Google Group https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ai4lam   

• Join the AI4LAM Slack for regular updates on the #ff2025 event channel: https://ai4lam.slack.com Join: https://join.slack.com/t/ai4lam/shared_invite/zt-1omthldn8-9vrGySjIRdija1nKQm0ltA  

• Check the AI4LAM website for updates 

• Send inquiries to FF2025@bl.uk    

• Organisers: Rossitza Atanassova, Neil Fitzgerald and Mia Ridge, British Library

Further details about the conference submission process and registration will be supplied soon. 

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