The selection committee for the ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award is pleased to announce that Professor Sven Koenig is the recipient of the 2026 award. Sven Koenig is Chancellor’s Professor and Bren Chair at the Computer Science Department of UC Irvine. He is one of the foundational figures of modern AI planning and search, whose work has fundamentally shaped how intelligent agents reason and act in complex, dynamic environments. His contributions seamlessly bridge theory and practice, with a profound impact not only on AI and multi-agent systems, but also on robotics, where his algorithms have enabled robust, scalable autonomy in real-world robotic platforms. A Fellow of AAAI, AAAS, and ACM, Professor Koenig has received several best paper awards from AAAI, ICALP and SoCS, and contributed to the community in numerous service roles, most recently having served as the conference chair of AAAI 2026.
