Mechanism Design (MD) and Strategic Decision Making (SDM) are foundational pillars of economic theory with growing relevance to computer science and multi-agent systems. MD and SDM are profoundly interconnected: mechanism designers must anticipate strategic behaviors, while agents continuously adapt their strategies in response to mechanisms.
Recent advances in AI, including foundation models and generative AI, are introducing novel methodologies that enhance and redefine these fields. Modern data-driven techniques like multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) and differentiable economics offer greater scalability in complex environments.
This workshop aims to serve as a premier venue to catalyze interdisciplinary research. We aim to bridge distinct research communities by bringing together experts from machine learning, economics, theoretical computer science, and operations research.
We invite submissions on how modern AI can redefine, extend, or automate core problems in Mechanism Design (MD) and Strategic Decision Making (SDM). We strongly encourage submissions from diverse fields, including machine learning, reinforcement learning, multi-agent systems, optimization, NLP, human-AI interaction, economics, operations research, and theoretical computer science.
All deadlines follow the Anywhere on Earth (AoE) timezone.
Submit papers through the AI for Mechanism Design and Strategic Decision Making on OpenReview.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
Format:
All submissions must be a single PDF file. We welcome high-quality original papers in the following two tracks. References and appendices are not included in the page limit, but the main text must be self-contained. Reviewers are not required to read beyond the main text.
Since 2025, ICLR has discontinued the separate “Tiny Papers” track, and is instead requiring each workshop to accept short (3–5 pages in ICLR format, exact page length to be determined by each workshop) paper submissions, with an eye towards inclusion; see https://iclr.cc/Conferences/2025/CallForTinyPapers for a history of the ICLR tiny papers initiative. Authors of these papers will be earmarked for potential funding from ICLR, but need to submit a separate application for Financial Assistance that evaluates their eligibility. This application for Financial Assistance to attend ICLR 2026 will become available on https://iclr.cc/Conferences/2026/ at the beginning of February and close early March.
Style file:
You must format your submission using the ICLR 2026 LaTeX style file. For your convenience, we have modified the main conference style file to refer to our workshop: iclr_aims.sty. Please include the references and supplementary materials in the same PDF. The maximum file size for submissions is 50MB. Submissions that violate the ICLR style (e.g., by decreasing margins or font sizes) or page limits may be rejected without further review.
Dual-submission and non-archival policy:
We welcome ongoing and unpublished work. We will also accept papers that are under review at the time of submission, or that have been recently accepted, provided they do not breach any dual-submission or anonymity policies of those venues. The workshop is a non-archival venue and will not have official proceedings. Workshop submissions can be subsequently or concurrently submitted to other venues.
Visibility:
Submissions and reviews will not be public. Only accepted papers will be made public.
Double-blind reviewing:
All submissions must be anonymized and may not contain any identifying information that may violate the double-blind reviewing policy. This policy applies to any supplementary or linked material as well, including code. If you are including links to any external material, it is your responsibility to guarantee anonymous browsing. Please do not include acknowledgements at submission time. If you need to cite one of your own papers, you should do so with adequate anonymization to preserve double-blind reviewing. Any papers found to be violating this policy will be rejected.
Oral and Best Paper Awards:
We plan to select approximately five papers from the Long Papers track to be presented as oral talks. In addition, we will give out one Best Paper Award for the Long Papers track, one Best Paper Award for the Short Papers track, and a Best Poster Award determined by on-site voting.
Contact:
For any questions, please contact us at aims_iclr2026@alibaba-inc.com.
This is the tentative schedule of the workshop. All slots are provided in local time.
| 9:00 – 9:10 | Opening Remarks |
| 9:10 – 9:40 | Invited Talk 1 |
| 9:40 – 10:10 | Invited Talk 2 |
| 10:10 – 10:40 | Coffee Break |
| 10:40 – 11:40 |
Oral Presentations (5 talks, 10 min presentation + 2 min Q&A each) |
| 11:40 – 13:00 | Lunch Break |
| 13:00 – 13:30 | Invited Talk 3 |
| 13:30 – 14:00 | Invited Talk 4 |
| 14:00 – 14:40 | Coffee Break |
| 14:40 – 15:10 | Invited Talk 5 |
| 15:10 – 15:50 |
Poster Session |
| 15:50 – 16:00 | Best Paper Awards & Closing Remarks |
Alimama
