LLM-based Search Engines (LLM-SEs) introduces a new paradigm for information seeking. Unlike Traditional Search Engines (TSEs) (e.g., Google), these systems summarize results, often providing limited citation transparency. The implications of this shift remain largely unexplored, yet raises key questions regarding trust and transparency. In this paper, we present a large-scale empirical study of LLM-SEs, analyzing 55,936 queries and the corresponding search results across six LLM-SEs and two TSEs. We confirm that LLM-SEs cites domain resources with greater diversity than TSEs. Indeed, 37% of domains are unique to LLM-SEs. However, certain risks still persist: LLM-SEs do not outperform TSEs in credibility, political neutrality and safety metrics. Finally, to understand the selection criteria of LLM-SEs, we perform a feature-based analysis to identify key factors influencing source choice. Our findings provide actionable insights for end users, website owners, and developers.

Effective presentation skills are essential in education, professional communication, and public speaking, yet learners often lack access to high-quality exemplars or personalized coaching. Existing AI tools typically provide isolated functionalities such as speech scoring or script generation without integrating reference modeling and interactive feedback into a cohesive learning experience. We introduce a dual-agent system that supports presentation practice through two complementary roles: the Ideal Presentation Agent and the Coach Agent. The Ideal Presentation Agent converts user-provided slides into model presentation videos by combining slide processing, visual-language analysis, narration script generation, personalized voice synthesis, and synchronized video assembly. The Coach Agent then evaluates user-recorded presentations against these exemplars, conducting multimodal speech analysis and delivering structured feedback in an Observation-Impact-Suggestion (OIS) format. To enhance the authenticity of the learning experience, the Coach Agent incorporates an Audience Agent, which simulates the perspective of a human listener and provides humanized feedback reflecting audience reactions and engagement. Together, these agents form a closed loop of observation, practice, and feedback. Implemented on a robust backend with multi-model integration, voice cloning, and error handling mechanisms, the system demonstrates how AI-driven agents can provide engaging, human-centered, and scalable support for presentation skill development in both educational and professional contexts.

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is crucial in medicine, but its clinical use is limited due to high signal-to-noise ratio doses increasing radiation exposure. Lowering doses increases Poisson noise, which current denoising methods fail to handle, causing distortions and artifacts. We propose a Poisson Consistent U-Net (PC-UNet) model with a new Poisson Variance and Mean Consistency Loss (PVMC-Loss) that incorporates physical data to improve image fidelity. PVMC-Loss is statistically unbiased in variance and gradient adaptation, acting as a Generalized Method of Moments implementation, offering robustness to minor data mismatches. Tests on PET datasets show PC-UNet improves physical consistency and image fidelity, proving its ability to integrate physical information effectively.

Detecting and localizing glass in 3D environments poses significant challenges for visual perception systems, as the optical properties of glass often hinder conventional sensors from accurately distinguishing glass surfaces. The lack of real-world datasets focused on glass objects further impedes progress in this field. To address this issue, we introduce a new dataset featuring a wide range of glass configurations with precise 3D annotations, collected from distinct real-world scenarios. On the basis of this dataset, we propose MonoGlass3D, a novel approach tailored for monocular 3D glass detection across diverse environments. To overcome the challenges posed by the ambiguous appearance and context diversity of glass, we propose an adaptive feature fusion module that empowers the network to effectively capture contextual information in varying conditions. Additionally, to exploit the distinct planar geometry of glass surfaces, we present a plane regression pipeline, which enables seamless integration of geometric properties within our framework. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art approaches in both glass segmentation and monocular glass depth estimation. Our results highlight the advantages of combining geometric and contextual cues for transparent surface understanding.

Welcome to our monthly digest, where you can catch up with any AIhub stories you may have missed, peruse the latest news, recap recent events, and more. This month, we dive into the world of agents, learn about responsible multimodal AI, apply generative AI to computer networks, and dig into the RoboCup@Work League. This month, Sanmay Das, Tom Dietterich, Sabine Hauert, Sarit Kraus, and Michael Littman tackled the topic of agentic AI, discussing recent developments, and lessons learned from the decades of research in the autonomous agents and multiagent systems community. The 34th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI2025) took place in Montréal from 16-22 August, with a satellite event currently being held (from 29-31 August) in Guangzhou, China. You can find out more about the programmes of both venues here, and get a flavour of what attendees got up to in our social media round-ups: Part one Part two.

The LifeTime Value (LTV) prediction, which endeavors to forecast the cumulative purchase contribution of a user to a particular item, remains a vital challenge that advertisers are keen to resolve. A precise LTV prediction system enhances the alignment of user interests with meticulously designed advertisements, thereby generating substantial profits for advertisers. Nonetheless, this issue is complicated by the paucity of data typically observed in real-world advertising scenarios. The purchase rate among registered users is often as critically low as 0.1%, resulting in a dataset where the majority of users make only several purchases. Consequently, there is insufficient supervisory signal for effectively training the LTV prediction model. An additional challenge emerges from the interdependencies among tasks with high correlation. It is a common practice to estimate a user's contribution to a game over a specified temporal interval. Varying the lengths of these intervals corresponds to distinct predictive tasks, which are highly correlated. For instance, predictions over a 7-day period are heavily reliant on forecasts made over a 3-day period, where exceptional cases can adversely affect the accuracy of both tasks. In order to comprehensively address the aforementioned challenges, we introduce an innovative framework denoted as Graph-Represented Pareto-Optimal LifeTime Value prediction (GRePO-LTV). Graph representation learning is initially employed to address the issue of data scarcity. Subsequently, Pareto-Optimization is utilized to manage the interdependence of prediction tasks.

The IJCAI-25 logo and theme photo (cropped). The 34rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-25) will be held in Montréal, Canada from 16-22 August. The programme will feature keynote talks, tutorials, workshops, competitions, and oral and poster presentations. There will also be four special tracks, focussing on: AI for social good, AI and arts, human-centred AI, and AI enabling critical technologies. An exciting addition this year is the satellite event, to be held in Guangzhou, China, from 29-31 August.

Accurate and interpretable motion planning is essential for autonomous vehicles (AVs) navigating complex and uncertain environments. While recent end-to-end occupancy prediction methods have improved environmental understanding, they typically lack explicit physical constraints, limiting safety and generalization. In this paper, we propose a unified end-to-end framework that integrates verifiable physical rules into the occupancy learning process. Specifically, we embed artificial potential fields (APF) as physics-informed guidance during network training to ensure that predicted occupancy maps are both data-efficient and physically plausible. Our architecture combines convolutional and recurrent neural networks to capture spatial and temporal dependencies while preserving model flexibility. Experimental results demonstrate that our method improves task completion rate, safety margins, and planning efficiency across diverse driving scenarios, confirming its potential for reliable deployment in real-world AV systems.

Safety-Critical Traffic Simulation with Guided Latent Diffusion Model 1 st Mingxing Peng The Hong Kong University of Science and T echnology (Guangzhou) Guangzhou, China mpeng060@connect.hkust-gz.edu.cn 2 nd Ruoyu Y ao The Hong Kong University of Science and T echnology (Guangzhou) Guangzhou, China ryao092@connect.hkust-gz.edu.cn 3 rd Xusen Guo The Hong Kong University of Science and T echnology (Guangzhou) Guangzhou, China xguo796@connect.hkust-gz.edu.cn 4 th Y uting Xie School of Computer Science and Engineering Sun Y at-sen University Guangzhou, China xieyt8@mail2.sysu.edu.cn 5 th Xianda Chen The Hong Kong University of Science and T echnology (Guangzhou) Guangzhou, China xchen595@connect.hkust-gz.edu.cn Abstract --Safety-critical traffic simulation plays a crucial role in evaluating autonomous driving systems under rare and challenging scenarios. However, existing approaches often generate unrealistic scenarios due to insufficient consideration of physical plausibility and suffer from low generation efficiency. T o address these limitations, we propose a guided latent diffusion model (LDM) capable of generating physically realistic and adversarial safety-critical traffic scenarios. Specifically, our model employs a graph-based variational autoencoder (V AE) to learn a compact latent space that captures complex multi-agent interactions while improving computational efficiency. Within this latent space, the diffusion model performs the denoising process to produce realistic trajectories. T o enable controllable and adversarial scenario generation, we introduce novel guidance objectives that drive the diffusion process toward producing adversarial and behaviorally realistic driving behaviors.

Heatwaves, intensified by climate change and rapid urbanisation, pose significant threats to urban systems, particularly in the Global South, where adaptive capacity is constrained. This study investigates the relationship between heatwaves and nighttime light (NTL) radiance, a proxy of nighttime economic activity, in four hyperdense cities: Delhi, Guangzhou, Cairo, and Sao Paulo. We hypothesised that heatwaves increase nighttime activity. Using a double machine learning (DML) framework, we analysed data from 2013 to 2019 to quantify the impact of heatwaves on NTL while controlling for local climatic confounders. Results revealed a statistically significant increase in NTL intensity during heatwaves, with Cairo, Delhi, and Guangzhou showing elevated NTL on the third day, while S\~ao Paulo exhibits a delayed response on the fourth day. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of these findings, indicating that prolonged heat stress prompts urban populations to shift activities to night. Heterogeneous responses across cities highlight the possible influence of urban morphology and adaptive capacity to heatwave impacts. Our findings provide a foundation for policymakers to develop data-driven heat adaptation strategies, ensuring that cities remain liveable and economically resilient in an increasingly warming world.