The Fourteenth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI-2002) was held from 28 July to 1 August in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in conjunction with the Seventeenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2002). As in past years, papers were solicited in two categories: (1) deployed applications and (2) emerging applications and technologies. Deployed application papers describe systems that have been in use for at least several months by individuals or organizations other than their developers, have measurable benefits, and incorporate AI technologies. Emerging applications are technologies and systems that are close to deployment and clearly show an innovative implementation of AI technologies.

The Thirteenth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI-2001) was held on 7 to 9 August 2001 in Seattle, Washington, in conjunction with the Seventeenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. As in past years, papers were solicited in two categories: (1) deployed applications and (2) emerging applications and technologies. Deployed applications are systems that have been in use for at least several months by individuals or organizations other than their developers, have measurable benefits, and incorporate AI technologies. Emerging applications are technologies and systems that are close to deployment and clearly show an innovative implementation of AI technologies.

In this special issue, we selected six of the papers, including one of the invited talks, and asked the authors to expand their conference presentations to provide more explanatory material. We believe these articles are representative of the current state of the art in innovative applications of AI.

The Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference was held 18-22 July 1999 in Orlando, Florida. Ramasamy Uthurusamy was the Program Chair and Barbara Hayes-Roth was the Program Co-Chair. Although all the IAAI-99 papers and talks were certainly interesting and important, we present in this special issue of AI Magazine only a select subset because of page and other limitations. We include two invited talks and four applications as a snapshot of IAAI-99.

The Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference

This article is a reflection on the goals and focus of the Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) Conference. The author begins with an historical review of the conference. He then goes on to discuss the role of the IAAI conference, including an examination of the relationship between AI scientific research and the application of AI technology. He concludes with a presentation of the new vision for the IAAI conference.