We strongly encourage submissions with the potential for meaningful societal impact, especially those that leverage AI responsibly. We welcome compelling competitions that attract broad, diverse, and interdisciplinary participation across the ICAIF 2026 Competition Track.
Technological advances in our field can have adverse effects on different communities. We welcome proposals that aim to address such issues, particularly from researchers with direct experience in these areas.
Our focus is on the impact of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in finance. Competitions should challenge participants to achieve the best performance on a machine-learning task relevant to the ICAIF community. The task should center on a specific problem and dataset provided by the competition organizers. A live component, such as a leaderboard, is recommended but not required.
ICAIF 2026 will be an in-person conference featuring a dedicated Competition Track. Participants and organizers will present and discuss the results. The Competition Track is currently planned as a live event with hybrid support lasting 3-4 hours. More details about the format will be shared in the coming months.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
Competition proposals are limited to 4 pages to keep the review process manageable. Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis, and compelling competitions may be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.
Submit your competition proposal via https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/ICAIF2026/ using the "Competitions" option in the drop-down menu. Proposals must be submitted as a single PDF file.
Submit Competition ProposalThe Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.
Each proposal will be reviewed and scored based on criteria such as:
Impact, originality, and relevance to the ICAIF community. Tasks with positive societal impact are especially encouraged, although other subjects relevant to the ICAIF community are also welcome.
Feasibility of the chosen task, adequacy of data for training and testing algorithms to solve the proposed task, soundness of the evaluation criteria, and clarity and fairness of competition rules will be evaluated.
The competition timeline, strategy for attracting participants, and the experience and diversity of the organizers will be considered. A detailed plan for participant recruitment will be important during the review process.
Anywhere on Earth (AOE)
| Subject | Date |
|---|---|
| Competition proposal submission deadline | August 9, 2026 23:59 AOE |
| Acceptance notification | August 17-20, 2026 |
| Competition track | TBD |
Competition organizers should provide a timeline that ensures participants have enough time to submit high-quality entries. Organizers who need assistance or suggestions regarding platforms for running the competition can contact the competition chairs for guidance.
For questions about competition proposals.
TBD