Planned Program on September 22, 2026
The workshop is part of the Informatikfest of the German Informatics Society (GI) in Dresden.
The workshop language will be English.
We plan to run the workshop hybrid. Register for the news on this website to receive the login information.
Disinformation Space
From Prompt to Propaganda: Generative AI and the New Disinformation Lifecycle
What to expect
Generative AI is fundamentally changing how information is created, manipulated, and propagated. The barrier to producing convincing misinformation and disinformation has never been lower, while the scale and speed of influence operations continue to grow.
Understanding these developments requires much more than isolated technical solutions. It demands collaboration across computer science, cybersecurity, media studies, linguistics, psychology, political science, industry, government, and civil society.
The Disinformation Space workshop brings together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, journalists, and technology experts for a full day dedicated to understanding the emerging AI-driven information ecosystem.
Rather than focusing solely on individual research presentations, the workshop is designed as an interactive forum with three complementary goals:
- Map the ecosystem. Identify the key actors, initiatives, projects, and competencies currently shaping research and practice in Germany, France, and Europe.
- Develop a shared roadmap. Discuss future research priorities, collaboration opportunities, and the capabilities required to counter AI-enabled information manipulation.
- Shape a common understanding. Work towards an operational definition of disinformation and misinformation that can serve as a common foundation for research, industry, and policy.
Participants can expect keynote talks, scientific presentations, hands-on demonstrations, panel discussions, interactive voting sessions, and numerous opportunities for networking.
The accepted papers cover the complete lifecycle of modern influence operations—from AI-assisted content generation and agentic infrastructures to large-scale propagation, human perception, regulation, governance, and linguistic manipulation.
The workshop concludes with an interactive discussion that synthesizes the day’s insights into concrete directions for future collaboration and research.
Whether you are interested in offensive capabilities, defensive technologies, policy, regulation, societal resilience, or interdisciplinary collaboration, the workshop provides a unique opportunity to engage with leading experts working on one of today’s most pressing socio-technical challenges.
Morning Program
Learning from National Ecosystems
How different countries organize research, operations, and resilience against AI-enabled disinformation.
09:00 – 09:10 Opening From Prompt to Propaganda
Generative AI and the New Disinformation Lifecycle
09:10 – 09:45 Keynote
09:45 – 10:30 Germany: Building a National Research Ecosystem
An overview of German initiatives, research projects, industry engagement, and emerging collaborations in the fight against disinformation.
Poster presentations available during the coffee break.
10:30 – 11:00 Coffee Break and Poster Session
11:00 – 11:35 France: From Research to Operational Capabilities
How France combines research, cybersecurity, public institutions, and operational actors to address information manipulation and influence operations.
Poster presentations available during the coffee break.
11:35 – 12:10 Ukraine: Lessons from the Frontline of Information Warfare (t.b.c.)
Practical experience from a country exposed to continuous influence operations. What works, what fails, and what Europe can learn from real-world information warfare.
Poster presentations available during the coffee break.
12:10 – 12:30 Panel Discussion
Building the European Disinformation Ecosystem
The three ecosystem presentations serve as the starting point for a broader discussion:
- Where are the strengths of each ecosystem?
- What capabilities are still missing?
- How can European collaboration be strengthened?
- What should the common research agenda be?
- How do we move from isolated projects to an integrated European ecosystem?
The discussion will contribute directly to the workshop outcomes:
- a mapping of the current ecosystem,
- a shared research roadmap,
- and a common understanding of disinformation for research, industry, and policy.
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch Break
Afternoon Program
Part I – Creating Influence
14:00 – 15:00 Hands-on Challenge: From Facts to Fake News
Participants receive a real news article and are challenged to transform it into a convincing piece of misinformation or disinformation using generative AI tools and their own creativity.
Submissions are entered anonymously into the workshop voting platform. During the afternoon, participants will evaluate all generated content before the best example is selected by the audience.
The session provides first-hand experience of how easily modern AI systems can transform truthful information into persuasive manipulation.
Part II – Building Influence
15:00 – 15:15 Scientific Presentation: The New Infrastructure of Influence
How agentic AI, autonomous systems, discovery mechanisms, and emerging web infrastructures are changing the way influence campaigns are planned, coordinated, and executed.
Poster discussion continues during the coffee break.
Part III – Spreading Influence
15:15 – 15:30 Scientific Presentation: From Seeding to Systemic Propagation
How local narratives become large-scale influence campaigns through coordinated dissemination, amplification, and multi-platform propagation.
Poster discussion continues during the coffee break.
15:30 – 16:30 Coffee Break and Poster Session
Part IV – Understanding Influence
16:30 – 17:30 Interactive Evaluation and Community Discussion
Participants evaluate the submitted fake news examples using a live voting system.
Together we discuss:
- Which stories were the most convincing?
- Which techniques proved most effective?
- Which manipulation strategies were easiest to detect?
- What makes AI-generated disinformation believable?
- Which defensive mechanisms appear most promising?
The session concludes by selecting the audience’s “winning” disinformation example and extracting lessons learned for research and practice.
Part V – Understanding Manipulation
17:30 – 17:45 Scientific Presentation: Language as a Weapon
How linguistic framing, emotional language, argumentative weaknesses, and stylistic cues influence the credibility and persuasive power of AI-generated misinformation.
Part VI – Countering Influence
17:45 – 18:00 Scientific Presentation Governance, Regulation, and Democratic Resilience
Technical, societal, and regulatory approaches for disrupting the modern disinformation lifecycle and strengthening democratic resilience.
18:00 Closing Remarks
Workshop outcomes:
- Mapping the ecosystem
- Research priorities
- European collaboration opportunities
- Towards a shared roadmap and common understanding of disinformation