IVADO Launches Thematic Semester on Autonomous Agents

IVADO will welcome the world’s leading researchers to address the next revolution in artificial intelligence (AI) – autonomous agents.

While large language models continue to transform our daily lives, a new revolution is brewing in research labs and in the industrial world: autonomous agents. IVADO, a centre of excellence in AI, is organizing a thematic semester dedicated to this emerging field that raises as many hopes as it does questions.

From August to December 2025, the Université de Montréal campus will become the global epicentre for reflection on these artificial entities capable of representing us and acting independently in the world. This major evolution has implications that extend far beyond the technological framework given their potential impacts on society.

At the Crossroads: Between Technical Achievement and Ethical Responsibility 

While large language models have already demonstrated impressive capabilities in generating text or code, the transition to autonomy represents a considerable qualitative leap. Emerging autonomous agents—such as those being developed by tools like Operator and Claude—can already perform tasks like navigating the web to purchase items, posting content on social media, executing complex workflows by interacting with software interfaces, or calling tools like calendars, email, or banking apps. These examples hint at the profound potential of agents to operate independently across digital and physical environments. With numerous technical challenges still to be mastered, it is essential to anticipate and address the technical, ethical, economic and societal issues raised by these technologies.

• How can we create agents capable of operating in complex environments without constant human supervision?
• How can we guarantee their reliability and safety when they interact with the real world?

This thematic semester will bring together researchers from across disciplines – natural language processing, computer vision, robotics, ethics – to collaborate closely in the face of this major scientific challenge.

A Program Structured Around Key Events

Opening Event Date:
Date: August 11, 2025

Bootcamp: Current State of Agents
Date: August 12-15, 2025

1st Workshop: Evaluating Capabilities and Research Challenges for Agents
Date: October 3-6, 2025

2nd Workshop: Safety Evaluation, Risk Mitigation, and Creating Safe Agents
Date: November 13-17, 2025

Leading Experts Mobilized

To meet this interdisciplinary challenge, IVADO has assembled an exceptional scientific committee, bringing together major figures in AI research, including Yoshua Bengio, scientific director at IVADO and pioneer of deep learning, as well as recognized experts such as Siva Reddy (IVADO, McGill and Mila), Dawn Song (Berkeley), Yu Su (Ohio State), Alane Suhr (Berkeley), Victor Zhong (University of Waterloo and Vector), and Christopher Pal (IVADO, Polytechnique Montréal, Université de Montréal and Mila).

Details regarding invited speakers and the complete program will be unveiled soon on the IVADO website.

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