Intelligent Markets

Intelligent Markets operates at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Information Systems, designing services that are autonomously negotiated and delivered, along with markets and the required data infrastructure. AI systems act as market participants: they personalize products and services for customers, decide whether to repair or replace, and independently conclude financial transactions.

Several research interests align with our work: How do AI systems with transactional capabilities evolve into economic actors — not just executing transactions but understanding and adaptively shaping the economic logic behind them? Such actors must master identity, reputation, and payments without locking themselves into disadvantageous centralized dependencies. Business ecosystems then emerge from their interplay: how do these actors recognize such ecosystems, hold their ground within them, and find ways forward when they collapse? And beyond that: under what conditions does the interplay between humans and algorithmic actors remain stable, and what countermeasures work against instability — from algorithmic price collusion to other harmful behavior?

The department takes a design perspective on these questions, with a strong focus on application: every approach is advanced until it connects with economic practice — technically safe, institutionally viable, and human-centered. Through the European Digital Innovation Hub CITAH and the AI testbed CRAI, the department maintains a research infrastructure in Lower Saxony that gives companies direct access to new AI systems and methods, whether through joint pilot studies, real-world testing, or hands-on collaboration with the research team. This is how the department drives the AI transformation of the Mittelstand, positioning itself as a first point of contact for companies that want to test AI-driven methods. The department also supports the Green-AI Hub Mittelstand, run by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN) — a nationwide initiative for AI-driven resource efficiency.