An art fellowship in Germany is outsourcing its jury to artificial intelligence. The organisation You Transfer has opened applications for its KI-Fellowship 2026, offering fellowships of €1,000 each and admitting 42 applications, KUNSTFORUM International reported on 15 October 2026.

The call is aimed at artistic works that engage with artificial intelligence and its effects on the present. The organisers stress that the work does not have to be produced with AI: positions are sought that examine, use, question, disrupt or contradict AI, and submissions can range from digital works to painting, photography, film, installation, performance, sculpture and sound.

The selection mechanism is the real provocation. There will be neither a human jury nor a single AI deciding the outcome. Instead, applicants build their own AI agent, give it an attitude, criteria and a negotiating style, and then discuss their artistic work with it; the agent formulates the application itself. In the next stage, called AGORA, the agents from all applications jointly form the jury, with each agent simultaneously representing its human's work and judging, responding to and negotiating with the others over who should be funded.

The fellowship runs alongside INSOMNIA, an exhibition staged by You Transfer, and details are published on the organisation's website. Whether an agent-jury can produce credible artistic judgment remains an open question, but as a piece of institutional design it is one of the most literal attempts yet to make AI a participant rather than a tool in art-world decision making. Applications are open now, and full details of the call are published on You Transfer's own website.