Reflections on the AI in Finance Workshop at ECAI 2025, Bologna

On October 26, 2025, I had the pleasure of co-organizing the AI in Finance Workshop at this year’s European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI) in Bologna. The event exceeded all expectations: more than 80 participants joined us for a full day of discussions, presentations, and exchanges at the intersection of artificial intelligence and financial innovation.

I had the opportunity to moderate a panel dedicated to the role of AI in the financial industry, featuring speakers from Intesa Sanpaolo, Banco d’Italia, and Simitain. Their perspectives on regulation, model adoption, and real-world deployment made the session one of the highlights of the workshop.

I also presented our recent work on optimal execution using the Q-Reactive model, discussing how reinforcement learning can improve execution strategies in modern electronic markets.

You can find the full program and event details here:
https://sites.google.com/view/ECAI25-ai-fin

The workshop generated great energy, insightful conversations, and a strong sense of community. Thank you to everyone who joined and contributed — looking forward to next steps and future collaborations!

Download presentation slides

Here you can find the arxiv paper: Reinforcement Learning in Queue-Reactive Models: Application to Optimal Execution.