AI4Life: Looking back and moving forward

AI4Life brought together leading experts in life science imaging, artificial intelligence, and research infrastructures to make AI-powered image analysis more accessible, interoperable, and open. Through this effort, the project strengthened the foundations of open science in bioimaging, fostered collaboration between academia and industry, and empowered a growing community of researchers and developers to co-create AI solutions that meet real scientific needs.

The impact of these efforts has also been recognised beyond the project itself. Recently, EMBL’s Lab Matters blog highlighted one of AI4Life’s flagship outcomes, the BioImage Model Zoo, in an article guided by interviews with AI4Life Scientific Coordinators Florian Jug and Anna Kreshuk. The feature illustrates how FAIR, interoperable AI models developed and curated through AI4Life are already enabling more accessible and reproducible bioimage analysis across the life sciences.

Advancing open science and collaboration

The project embraced open science practices, ensuring that its results — from software tools to workflows and datasets — remain accessible and reusable by the community.

AI4Life also built strong partnerships across sectors, engaging with industry to accelerate innovation and align research and technological development.

Read more:

• Open Science in AI4Life
• AI4Life Key Results and Impact
• How AI4Life Collaborated with Industry

Empowering the Community through Open Calls, Challenges, and Standards

AI4Life thrived on community participation. Through its Open Calls, the project connected imaging facilities with AI experts to co-develop tailored analysis solutions. The AI4Life Challenges pushed the boundaries of AI methods for image segmentation, classification, and annotation, while the project’s work on standards and interoperability ensured that tools, models, and data could be shared across platforms and infrastructures.

Read more:

• AI4Life Open Calls
• AI4Life Challenges
• AI4Life Standards and Interoperability
  

What’s Next for AI4Life

Although the project has officially concluded, its mission continues. The infrastructures, communities, and open resources established through AI4Life will remain at the core of efforts to advance FAIR, accessible, and AI-driven bioimaging.

Read more about what’s next for AI4Life

Stay Connected

The AI4Life journey has been a true community effort — and it doesn’t end here.

Our shared commitment to open, FAIR, and collaborative bioimaging continues through Euro-BioImaging ERIC and the many partners who contributed to AI4Life’s success.

You can stay connected and get involved in what comes next by joining our open community meetings every Wednesday at 16:00 CE(S)T:

• First week of the month: Community Board — open to current and prospective Community Partners.
• Other weeks: Technical Board — focused on ongoing developments, with task forces forming as needed.

Stay in touch

Follow Euro-BioImaging and our partners to stay up-to-date on developments, community opportunities, and ways to contribute to the BioImage Model Zoo and other open infrastructures:

- Subscribe to the Euro-BioImaging Newsletter

- Follow Euro-BioImaging on LinkedIn, Instagram, Bluesky, YouTube, and Twitter/X

Together, we’ll continue building an open and connected future for AI-powered bioimaging.