A free half-day Danish-language conference held on 19 August 2026 at Den Sorte Diamant in Copenhagen, organised by the national encyclopaedia Lex with DR and six knowledge institutions, examining how artificial intelligence shapes what a society gets to know and who is accountable for it. As of 31 October 2026, the organiser had not announced the next edition.
"AI-konference: Når AI afgør, hvad vi ved" translates as "When AI decides what we know" and was the fourth edition of an annual afternoon conference in Copenhagen organised by Lex, Denmark's national encyclopaedia (Danmarks Nationalleksikon), with the public broadcaster DR and a group of Danish knowledge institutions. The full working title on the organiser's site is "Når AI afgør, hvad vi ved: hvordan sikrer vi adgang til troværdig viden?" ("When AI decides what we know: how do we secure access to trustworthy knowledge?"). The event examines AI systems as filters and gatekeepers of public information: what gets surfaced, what gets suppressed, and which institutions carry responsibility for knowledge quality. It sits within the developer and applied-AI circuit tracked by Events Index, though its centre of gravity is policy and epistemics rather than engineering.
This is a policy, media and information-science event, not a technical developer conference. It sits where AI governance, public-service journalism and library and archive practice meet, drawing on Lex's mandate as a quality-assured knowledge institution and DR's public-service remit. The framing question is deliberately democratic rather than commercial: when large language models translate, summarise and answer questions with confidence but also with bias and error, and when AI chatbots and search engines retain users while hiding their sources, how does a society preserve free and equal access to information it can trust. The 2026 edition ran as a structured three-hour session with speakers confirmed from research, cultural institutions, national statistics, public broadcasting and the Danish Parliament. Readers tracking adjacent governance-focused programmes on the developer and applied-AI circuit may also follow The Responsible AI Conference 2026, which treats accountability and risk as its main subject.
The organiser is Lex (Danmarks Nationalleksikon), the body behind the Danish national encyclopaedia, whose editorial mission centres on verified, publicly accessible knowledge. The 2026 conference was co-produced with DR (Danmarks Radio), the Danish public broadcaster, and listed six further partners drawn from Denmark's core knowledge infrastructure: Det Kgl. Bibliotek (the Royal Danish Library), Danmarks Statistik (Statistics Denmark), Rigsarkivet (the Danish National Archives), Danmarks Biblioteksforening (the Danish Library Association), Danske Gymnasier (the Danish upper-secondary schools association) and Danske Universiteter (Universities Denmark). This partner structure is what distinguishes the event from a vendor conference: the room is assembled from the institutions that produce, preserve and certify public knowledge, rather than the companies that build the models. The recurring collaboration between an encyclopaedia and a public broadcaster gives the series a consistent institutional voice on information quality across editions.
The 2026 programme was built around AI as a determinant of public knowledge and the institutional responses to it. Themes listed on the organiser's site for 2026 included:
The organiser listed a cross-institutional line-up spanning research, cultural heritage, national statistics, public broadcasting and parliament, a mix unusual among the technical fixtures on the developer and applied-AI circuit. Names and affiliations listed for the 2026 edition:
The two parliamentarians were scheduled to close the day by summarising the themes and reflecting on how the conference's findings can be turned into political action, which mirrors the series' established practice of feeding results back into the legislative process.
This is a small, free, single-afternoon event rather than a large commercial summit, and it does not attract the wide trade-press coverage of the bigger AI fixtures on the calendar. Its media and policy footprint is nonetheless real and attributable, concentrated around the series rather than any single edition:
No accredited-journalist counts, ticket-sales totals or attendance figures are published by the organiser as of this verification, and none are asserted here.
Lex has run this conference annually since 2023, each edition producing a freely available white paper:
The line-up spanned research, cultural heritage, statistics, public broadcasting and parliament. Names listed for the 2026 edition included Kristoffer Nielbo (Aarhus University), Claes Holger de Vreese (University of Southern Denmark and University of Amsterdam), Rebecca Adler-Nissen (University of Copenhagen, CAISA), Jill Walker Rettberg (University of Bergen), Mikkel Flyverbom (CBS), Søren Bitsch Christensen (Royal Danish Library), Jonas Heide Smith (National Gallery of Denmark), Tine Smedegaard Andersen (National Museum of Denmark), Morten Elbæk Petersen (sundhed.dk), Carsten Ulrik Zangenberg (Statistics Denmark), Anders Kern Boje (DR Nyheder) and Ole Mølgaard (Lex), with MPs Lisbeth Bech-Nielsen (SF) and Birgitte Vind (S) scheduled to close the programme.
Yes. The 2026 conference was conducted entirely in Danish, and no interpretation was advertised. Non-Danish speakers would face a real language barrier across the sessions. The fiche is written in English for international readers; the Danish titles and quotations are given in Danish with English glosses so nothing is presented as a verbatim English source.
Digital attendance was free on registration for the 2026 edition. Physical attendance was sold out at the time of verification, and the organiser notes a limited number of seats, so digital access was the realistic route for most prospective attendees. This applies to the 2026 edition only; no registration for a later edition had been announced as of 31 October 2026.
Its organisers are a national encyclopaedia and a public broadcaster, and its partners are libraries, archives, a statistics office and university and school associations. The programme is weighted toward information quality, governance and democratic access rather than product launches, funding or model architecture. It is closer to a public-institution policy forum than to a technology showcase, which is why it draws editors, researchers and MPs rather than founders and investors.
Den Sorte Diamant (The Black Diamond) is the modern waterfront extension of the Royal Danish Library on Søren Kierkegaards Plads in central Copenhagen. Dronningesalen (The Queen's Hall) is its main concert and event auditorium and hosted this conference. The building is centrally located, served by public transit, and associated with Denmark's primary national knowledge institutions, which reinforces the event's framing around trustworthy public knowledge. It is a modern building with full accessibility provisions.
Lex (Danmarks Nationalleksikon) is the organisation behind the Danish national encyclopaedia, with an editorial mission built on verified, trustworthy knowledge that is publicly and freely accessible. The conference is its principal public-facing event on information quality, co-produced with DR (Danmarks Radio), the Danish public broadcaster. Together the two represent long-established public knowledge and media institutions, and the recurring conference has become the vehicle through which Lex convenes the wider Danish knowledge sector, and increasingly the Folketing, around AI's effect on public information.
For anyone working at the junction of AI systems and public information infrastructure, this Copenhagen conference addresses questions most developer events skip: not how to build the models, but how a democracy keeps access to trustworthy knowledge when those models mediate it. Its distinctive value on the developer and applied-AI circuit is the room itself, an encyclopaedia, a public broadcaster, libraries, archives and MPs in one hall, and the fact that its conclusions have demonstrably reached the Danish Parliament.
For the 2026 edition, digital access was free on registration via the organiser's site. Physical attendance was sold out as of verification, with a limited number of seats, so the free digital stream was the practical option for most prospective attendees. No ticket cost was associated with digital participation. These terms applied to the 2026 edition; no later edition had been announced as of 31 October 2026.
Yes, for the 2026 edition. Free digital access was available on registration for remote attendees, and the stream was managed by the organiser. This was the recommended route given that physical seats were sold out at verification.
The organiser has not confirmed on-demand recordings for the 2026 edition as of verification. The series does, however, publish a freely available white paper (hvidbog) summarising each edition's conclusions, so the substance of the discussion is documented in writing even where video is not confirmed.
Yes. Den Sorte Diamant is a modern building with full accessibility provisions. Specific arrangements are available through the venue's official communications.
| Official website (event page) | https://mere.lex.dk/event/hvordan-sikrer-vi-fri-og-lige-adgang-til-trovaerdig-viden-i-en-tid-med-kunstig-intelligens/ |
| Register (digital access) | https://mere.lex.dk/ |
| Conference series and white papers | https://mere.lex.dk/events/konferencer/ |
| Related: The Responsible AI Conference 2026 | /events/the-responsible-ai-conference-2026.html |
| Related: AI and Business Strategies Nordic | /events/ai-business-strategies-nordic-2026.html |
| Developer and applied-AI circuit (Events Index) | /developer-ai.html |
| Upcoming EMEA events (Events Index) | /upcoming.html |