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University ICAIF 2026

Artificial Intelligence and Finance: Michael Barr (Fed) at Bocconi for ICAIF 2026

, by Barbara Orlando
The governor of the US central bank will participate in the international conference scheduled in Milan from November 14 to 17. Researchers, banks, and institutions will discuss how AI is transforming credit, investments, and financial stability

Michael S. Barr, Governor of the Federal Reserve, will be at Bocconi University on November 16 for ICAIF 2026, the seventh ACM International Conference on AI in Finance, scheduled to take place in Milan from November 14 to 17. His presence will bring the U.S. central bank’s perspective to the discussion on Artificial Intelligence in finance, as the use of algorithms raises new questions about risk management, market functioning, and the protection of households and businesses.

The conference will bring together researchers, industry professionals, and representatives of financial institutions to discuss a transformation that affects everyday decisions: who gets a loan, how savings are invested, and what indicators help detect fraud. At the heart of the discussion is the potential to improve these decisions and the need to ensure that the tools guiding them are reliable, transparent, and verifiable.

Central Banks and Financial Stability

The relationship between innovation and stability will be the focus on Monday, the 16th, during the panel dedicated to central banks, systemic risks, and Artificial Intelligence. Following opening remarks by Francesca Coloni, Managing Director of Bocconi University, the discussion will be moderated by Elena Carletti, Dean for Research, featuring Kartik Anand of the Bundesbank, Celso Brunetti of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Andrea Coletta of the Bank of Italy, and Jonas Fisher of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

The keynote speech and panel discussion will explore the opportunities and risks of integrating AI into markets and risk management, linking research findings to the needs of those who operate within the financial system and safeguard its stability.

“Artificial Intelligence can change the way we assess risk and make financial decisions,” says Carlo Ambrogio Favero, full professor of Econometrics at Bocconi. “The economic question is what benefits it brings to households and businesses and how it changes the incentives and behaviors of market participants. Hosting this discussion at Bocconi means bringing together those who develop the models with those who study their consequences.”

From Credit to Investments: Testing Reliability

The scientific program covers credit assessment, default detection, fraud prevention, financial inclusion, and sustainable investments. The key challenge is to improve analytical capabilities without perpetuating discrimination, while protecting personal data and ensuring that decision-making criteria are transparent.

Special attention will be given to generative AI and agents capable of performing sequences of tasks. The training sessions will focus on systems that read financial documents and trace responses back to their sources, as well as on the ability to measure uncertainty and refrain from acting when a response is not sufficiently reliable. In an investment analysis or risk assessment, a convincing but incorrect response can, in fact, have real-world consequences.

“In finance, the quality of a model is also measured by its ability to recognize its own limitations,” observes Claudio Tebaldi, associate professor of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Finance at Bocconi University. “We need to understand how robust its recommendations are when market conditions change, how to verify them, and when human intervention is necessary. It is in this area that dialogue between researchers and practitioners can make innovation more reliable” .

The Conference and Bocconi’s Contribution

November 14 and 15 will be dedicated to workshops, training sessions, and competitions; the main conference will take place on November 16 and 17. Out of over a thousand proposals received, 60 papers—about 6% of the total—were selected for presentation.

Bocconi is contributing to the organizational and scientific leadership of the conference: Carlo Ambrogio Favero and Claudio Tebaldi are local chairs alongside Alessandro Provetti of the University of Milan; Riccardo Zecchina is one of the program chairs, and Marc Mézard is one of the workshop chairs. The general chair is Andrea Maurino of the University of Milan-Bicocca.

 

Program and information: https://icaif2026.org/

 

 

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