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!
AI Fridays
& Our AI Common Lab
AI Natives hosts AI Fridays, a weekly open-door gathering that invites students, founders, professionals, and curious minds to explore the frontiers of artificial intelligence. These sessions provide a hands-on, collaborative space where experimentation, learning, and serendipitous encounters drive innovation.
Activities include:
Resident Speaker Series: Talks and Q&A with AI experts, founders, and thought leaders.
Thematic Workshops: Interactive sessions tackling emerging AI applications, ethics, and creative problem-solving.
Hackathons & Labs: Short, focused sprints where participants prototype ideas or experiment with AI tools.
Community Dinners & Networking: Informal spaces to share insights, spark conversations, and forge cross-disciplinary collaborations.
AI Fridays is more than an event — it’s a living lab for the AI-native community, fostering curiosity, creativity, and connections across disciplines. Participants leave inspired, informed, and ready to experiment with new ideas at the intersection of technology, society, and design.
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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![A stylized, digital illustration of a tree with circuitry patterns on its trunk and branches, with a brain-like shape made of green leaves at the top, set against a blue sky with clouds and a body of water in the background.]()
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
Sign in to our online leaning tracks to start becoming AI-native today: