Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel will host the next ACI Conference, bringing the event to continental Europe for the first time as it convenes on the FHNW campus in Brugg-Windisch, Switzerland, from December 2-5, 2026. The conference website is already online at www.aciconf.org, where the most important information is available; individual deadlines may still change. In the meantime, the website has been updated and expanded. It now includes visual elements that reference both the animal world of Switzerland and the thematic focus of the conference, strengthening its visual identity and contextual framing. Building on a tradition that has taken the community from Glasgow to North Carolina, Newcastle, Bloomington, Milton Keynes, Haifa, and Atlanta, this edition continues the conference’s role as a leading venue for advancing Animal-Computer Interaction. As the field grows, researchers and practitioners explore how technology shapes animals’ lives, welfare, cognition, and social dynamics while developing animal-centered systems and methods that embrace multispecies perspectives. The conference maintains its commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration across biology, technology, and cultural studies, supporting work that seeks to design ethically grounded, welfare-enhancing, and inclusive technological futures for all animals, humans included. ACI 2026 will also feature a Special Issue on Animal-Machine Interaction, a research field shaped in important ways by Oliver Bendel. The conference proceedings will be published in a volume of a renowned organization, ensuring wide visibility and long-term accessibility for the contributions presented.

Fig.: One of the visual elements