Machine Learning and Knowledge Engineering for Knowledge-Grounded Semantic Agents (MAKE 2026)

MAKE 2026 aims to bring together a diverse group of researchers and practitioners to explore integrating machine learning and knowledge engineering in the development of knowledge-grounded semantic agents.

As artificial intelligence enters a new decade, research is returning to one of its most fundamental paradigms—agents and multi-agent systems—to build systems that can reason, plan, and act autonomously across digital and physical environments. Recent advances in large language models, multimodal perception, and generative AI have accelerated the rise of agents capable of tool use, communication, and complex task execution.

Yet many of these capabilities rely on approximate forms of reasoning and planning that remain insufficient for dependable decision-making. Integrating machine learning with explicit semantic knowledge structures—such as ontologies, knowledge graphs, and logical reasoning frameworks—offers a path toward agents that are verifiable, explainable, and aligned with human objectives.

This symposium will provide a forum for fostering collaboration between academia and industry, addressing the challenges of building semantic agents. The goal is to semantically advance agent architectures—including LLM, VLM, VLA, LxM, and multi-agent systems—to become knowledge-grounded, trustworthy, robust, interpretable, and capable of human-aligned reasoning and decision-making across diverse applications.

MAKE 2026 • AAAI Spring Symposium Series

MAKE 2026 is part of the AAAI Spring Symposium Series, an annual set of meetings run in parallel at a common site.

The AAAI Spring Symposium Series «[…] is designed to bring colleagues together in an intimate forum while at the same time providing a significant gathering point for the AI community.

The two-and-one-half-day format of the series allows participants to devote considerably more time to feedback and discussion than typical one-day workshops. It is an ideal venue for bringing together new communities in emerging fields.» (aaai.org)

April 7-April 9, 2026 @ Hyatt Regency, San Francisco Airport | Burlingame, CA, USA

Topics

MAKE 2026 serves as a platform to shape the next generation of hybrid AI by bridging the gap between machine learning and knowledge engineering. It emphasizes grounding AI agents in explicit semantics and structured knowledge to achieve reliable, explainable, and human-aligned intelligence. Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

• Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Neural Networks
• Knowledge Engineering, Representation, and Reasoning
• Trustworthy, Commonsense, and Explainable AI
• Hybrid AI, Neurosymbolic, and Metacognitive AI
• Human-Centered AI, Dialogue Systems, and Conversational AI
• Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Semantic, Hybrid, and LLM-Based Agent Architectures
• Multi-Agent Collaboration, Communication, and Coordination
• Hybrid (Human–Artificial) Intelligence and Human-in-the-Loop AI

Format & Keynote

The 2.5-day event will follow the traditional AAAI Spring Symposium Series schedule, with a diverse mixture of keynotes and morning and afternoon sessions.

• Peter Clark is Senior Research Director and a founding member at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), where he also served as Interim CEO during 2022–2023. His research focuses on automated scientific discovery, knowledge representation and reasoning, and natural language understanding. He was a founding member of the MAKE organizing committee in 2019 and is running AI2’s major new initiative on agents for scientific discovery, closely connected to the 2026 symposium theme.
• Zvonimir Rakamaric is a Principal Applied Scientist at Amazon Web Services, where his work focuses on the intersection of agentic AI based on large language models and knowledge representation in a commercial context. He conducts applied research on semantic and autonomous agents with an emphasis on reliability, robustness, and practical deployment. Previously, he was an Associate Professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah, where he led the Software Analysis Research Laboratory (SOARlab).

Submission

Organizing Committee

Andreas Martin (primary contact, 📧), FHNW, Olten, Switzerland

Pedro A. Colon-Hernandez, Apple, Mountain View, CA, USA

Maaike de Boer, TNO, The Hague, Netherlands

Hans-Georg Fill, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Aurona Gerber, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Leilani H. Gilpin, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

Pascal Hitzler, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

Jane Yung-jen Hsu, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan

Yen-Ling Kuo, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Emanuele Laurenzi, FHNW, Olten, Switzerland

Alessandro Oltramari, Carnegie Bosch Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Thomas Schmid, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

Paulo Shakarian, Syracuse University, NY, USA

Reinhard Stolle, Fraunhofer IKS, München, Germany

Frank van Harmelen, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands