How do editorial, product, and tech teams actually work with AI in their day-to-day routines – beyond keynotes and glossy case studies? At the Media Lab Innovation Festival 2026, we want to bring to the stage what often stays under the radar: real pain points and honest stories of failure.
On 18 March 2026, the AI for Media Network will be part of the Media Lab Innovation Festival programme with two formats: the AI Clinic and the B(a)d Time Stories. Members of our network are invited to take part in both formats.
AI Clinic: Emergency room for AI pain points
The idea comes from the field of mediacal education. The treating physician presents the case of patient X – for whom no therapy has really worked so far – to a mostly interdisciplinary expert audience. The collective expertise often leads to new ideas and approaches. In the AI Clinic, we transfer this principle to the media industry. The format is an “emergency room” for concrete AI challenges from everyday media work.
How the AI Clinic works:
At the beginning, participants present their case in a pitch of no more than five minutes. Whether it’s a prompt disaster, workflow killer, data dead end, or ethics dilemma – every case is welcome.
Afterwards, participants break out into small, moderated groups. There, media and AI experts work together with the pitchers on their cases. The goal is to develop practical solution approaches in a short amount of time, or to gain new perspectives that that you might never have arrived at within your own organization. .
To warm up, the AI Clinic starts with a real success story:
Our colleagues Sophie Rauch and Johannes Schiller from MDR next will present how a four-week AI experiment unfolded. An interdisciplinary team explored how AI can be used in documentaries to, for example, fill gaps in archive material. The result was an eight-minute documentary excerpt about an escape from the GDR, generated largely from only fragmentarily preserved photographic material.
Application: How to get your case into the AI Clinic
Wer einen If you would like to contribute a case, you can apply via email to aiformedia@br.de. Please provide:
- A (working) title
- A short description of the problem and its context (maximum five sentences)
- Names and organisations of the presenters
From all submissions, we will select the most exciting and relevant cases.
B(a)d Time Stories: When failure makes the best story
While the AI Clinic operates on current pain points, B(a)d Time Stories focus on another topic: projects that did not go according to plan. Many AI and innovation projects start with big ambitions – and end in dead ends, postponed launches, or tools that nobody uses. These experiences are still rarely discussed openly in the media industry.
The focus is not on embarrassment, but on learnings. The speakers will share what they have taken away from failed attempts: which assumptions turned out to be wrong, which warning signs they would take more seriously today – and which new paths have opened up precisely because of the detours. In the spirit of: “We try things – failure is part of that – dust yourself off – keep going.”
Entertainment with depth
The stories can hurt a little, but they should also be fun and help people connect. We ask:
What exactly did not work – in the tool, the team, or the process?
Which alternatives would, in hindsight, have made more sense?
What structures are needed to make failure a natural part of the learning process?
B(a)d Time Stories are inspired by the “Friday Fuckups” and “Fuckup Nights” formats, so AI fails can absolutely be presented in an entertaining way.
Application: Sharing your own B(a)d Time Story
If you would like to share your own B(a)d Time Story that led to a valuable learning – or is simply too entertaining not to share – you can apply via email: aiformedia@br.de.
The Media Lab Innovation Festival will take place on 18 and 19 March at the University of Television and Film (HFF), Bernd-Eichinger-Platz 1, Gabelsbergerstraße 35, 80333 Munich. The AI Clinic is scheduled as a workshop on 18 March from 16:15 to 18:30, followed directly by the B(a)d Time Stories from 18:30 to 19:00 in the HFF cinema.