Human–AI collaboration:
exploring what’s only possible through AI
We guide the next generation of founders through the AI revolution.
Become part of the class of 2026!
Future Forward Founders
Future Forward Founders
We are looking for the next generation of entrepreneurs who are ready to leverage the long-term opportunities of emerging technologies and the disruptive edge of an AI-native future.
Become part of the class of 2026!
Our program:
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Class of 2026
At the heart of our program sits human-to-human collaboration.
In the weekly 2-hour intensive colloquium hosted by the incubator the class of 2026 focuses on the exchange of insights, testing assumptions, and future proofing each business model through guided iteration.
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Foresight Sessions
Intensive Zukunftswerkstädte facilitated for each founder team every 4 weeks in the ideation phase using tools from foresight, design thinking and future science.
Helps the founders clarify long-term problem solving, market trajectories, and AI-native positioning.
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One-on-one Mentoring
The incubator also offers on-demand mentorship sessions for technical, organizational, or strategic challenges.
Option to bring in external experts (AI engineers, designers, patent lawyer, investors) for topic specific advice.
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Coworking
Shared workspace (“AI Basecamp”) equipped with internet, meeting zones, and prototyping resources in the heart of Plagwitz, Leipzig.
Daily check-ins and light-touch coaching for administrative, organizational, or team challenges.
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Demo Day 2026
Formal pitch event co-hosted by the incubators main funding partner to conclude the yearly program.
Enables direct access to capital and visibility to accelerate the next steps towards the future for the graduates of the class of 2026.
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Industry Collaboration
We help facilitate pilot projects between founders and future-forwards regional actors and industry.
Organize small “problem labs” where founders propose AI-native solutions to public or industrial challenges.
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School Incubator
The incubator is building a talent-pipeline for future founders by offering an after-school AI incubator program at Ostwald Gymnasium starting 2026/27.
Students are enabled to explore original ideas in small teams and approach real-world challenges through AI-natives solutions.
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AI Fridays
Weekly open-door gatherings where anyone can drop in to explore what’s emerging in AI.
Including public events like resident speakers, hackathons, community dinners, and thematic workshops that bring together people from across disciplines to highlight new ideas and unexpected collisions.
Become AI Native
We are a foresight-driven incubator that creates founders capable of building for markets that don’t exist yet.
With over a decade of experience in future science, emerging technology analysis, and strategic consulting, we want to bring a future forward perspective to early-stage founders — guiding them through the next decade of uncertainty and accelerated transformation.
We focus on AI-native solutions and the reinvention of value in the next decade: through collective intelligence, adaptive experimentation, and co-creation with AI.
Sign in to our online leaning tracks to start becoming AI-native today:
FAQs
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Our program is most valuable for people who are not just passionate about AI, but who can see what others can not — how to not just iterate with AI but how to disrupt.
We call these people ‘AI Natives’, and are particularly interested in speaking with individuals who think differently and are willing to go the distance to reimagine industries, and build the business of the future.
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No you do not need a cofounder to apply. We very much welcome founder teams, but are also aware how AI enables solofounders like never before. The program brings together exceptional individuals to collaborate, which might include finding a cofounder and pivoting an idea to build a startup from scratch.
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Our program is based in Leipzig and designed for individuals who can dedicate significant time to building; with weekly colloquium, a structured 3 month foresight process and an eight weeks summer sprint. This unique process works due to the cohort’s shared focus and commitment to move as fast as possible in an accelerated world.
That’s why we expect you to commit to the program as your main focus - not just a side project - and be located in Leipzig. -
Following our commitment to speed, we review applications on a rolling basis. You will receive an email from us regardless of the outcome of your application. If we think you might be a good fit, we will invite you to meet in person.
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At the moment, AI Natives does not directly provide financial stipends. However, we support founders in securing public funding such as the EXIST-Gründerstipendium. Most academic founders can secure at least partial funding paths while building their startup.
The Human Epoch:
Why We Must Reinvent the Industrial Education Model Before AGI Arrives
In the hushed boardrooms of Silicon Valley and the frantic Slack channels of startups, founders and CEOs are all whispering the same thing. The prediction is no longer a distant sci-fi fantasy; it is a concrete timeline. Five years. Within five years, we will most likely confront Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and with it, a tsunami of structural unemployment.
For decades, the "Life Formula" was seductive in its simplicity: Go to school, get a degree, get a job, retire. It was a social contract that promised stability in exchange for compliance.
Today, that contract is void.
We are witnessing the formula break in real-time. In countries around the world, entry-level graduate openings are plummeting. The traditional job market is slamming shut. Yet, tragically, our educational systems are still churning along as if nothing has changed, preparing Generation Alpha for a world that has already ceased to exist.
The Industrial Hangover
We are currently trapping our children in a system rooted in the 19th century. Our schools were designed for the Industrial Age—built to produce factory workers and mid-level bureaucrats who could follow instructions, memorize facts, and complete repetitive tasks.
Generation Alpha is currently enduring 12 years of arduous, repetitive training to fit into an industrialized economy. But that economy is being vaporized. We are training them to compete with AI on the wrong playing field. If we teach a child to do a task that is predictable and repetitive, we are teaching them to compete with a model that will do that job faster, cheaper, and infinitely better within a few years.
It is a recipe for obsolescence.
The Paradox of a New Era
However, this disruption brings with it a massive paradox. While this may be the worst time in history to be a traditional employee, it is arguably the easiest and best time in history to be a creator.
We are entering a "Human Epoch." As the cost of technical execution drops to near zero thanks to AI, the value of human intent, creativity, and vision skyrockets. We are circling back to a moment in time defined by entrepreneurship and craftsmanship.
The challenge is that our infrastructure isn't built for this. We don't need better schools; we need incubators for the human mind.
New Infra-structure
To survive and thrive in the age of AGI, we must stop asking students to memorize the past and start teaching them to architect the future. We need a new infrastructure of hands-on learning where AI is treated not as a cheat code, but as a collaborator, a co-creator, and a force multiplier.
The curriculum of the future isn't about rote learning; it is about agency.
The real questions we must ask—and answer:
Can we teach them to solve real-world problems end-to-end, employing AI not just as a tool, but as a partner?
Can we teach them to lead an AI workforce with discernment?
Can we teach taste and vision?
In a world where an AI can generate infinite content, code, and data, the human differentiator will be the ability to curate, to direct, and to distinguish the excellent from the merely average. We must teach students how to provide the spark that a model cannot generate by itself.
The Return of the Artisan
We are moving away from the era of the "worker" and into the era of the "founder." This doesn't necessarily mean everyone starts a billion-dollar company, but it means everyone must adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. The goal is to figure out how to create value in an AI-native world.
The warning signs are flashing, but so are the lights of opportunity. If we can pivot from an education system of compliance to one of creation, we won't just survive the arrival of AGI—we will define it. The traditional path is closing. It’s time to build a new one.
Meet the Team
We’re not a traditional startup accelerator — and that’s intentional.
AI Natives is built around a different kind of expertise: future-thinking, AI-native strategy, and the ability to guide founders before the rules are written.
We blend foresight, research, emerging-tech insight, and hands-on experience to help early builders see what others overlook.
This lets them focus on clarity, direction, and long-term advantage — so they can navigate uncertainty with confidence and shape what comes next.
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I come from foresight, emerging tech, and strategic research, not classic entrepreneurship.
I see this as a strength, because:
I am deeply familiar with long-term technological shifts.
I can guide founders to think in “AI-native” terms — not just replicate existing startup patterns.
My mission is to create a collective learning space where founders experiment, share insights, and evolve as fast as the technology itself.
In my view the incubator’s value is not to coach though good-enough business plans, but to enable an adaptive, future-oriented mindset - where founders build for 2035 not for 2025.
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With over a decade of international experience across three continents, Eyal brings a multidisciplinary background that spans from complex logistics and problem-solving to high-level communications and PR.
As Co-Founder of the AI incubator, he leverages a proven track record of scaling operations and navigating diverse markets to empower early-stage startups. His expertise in bridge-building between technical innovation and strategic storytelling allows him to guide founders through the nuances of product-market fit and global expansion.
Eyal is dedicated to fostering the next generation of AI-driven solutions by combining operational excellence with a deep understanding of the global tech ecosystem.
Contact us.
Whether you’re here to build, fund, explore, or collaborate — drop us a message. Interesting things tend to start that way.
Leipzig Südwest
Hours
Monday–Friday
10am–6pm
eyal.lampert@gmail.com
01785765066