OPTIMA Debate: Why Optimise When AI Has the Answers?

When AI answers anything, why optimise? OPTIMA Debate 2026 explores if it's obsolete or the hidden force driving smarter, safer AI.
About this Event

Generative AI can now write, plan, code, and recommend at lightning speed, so do we still need optimisation? Or are solvers, constraints, and objective functions relics of a slower past?
OPTIMA returns with its annual debate exploring a timely question: why optimise when AI appears to have all the answers?
Join researchers and industry experts as AI and optimisation go head-to-head over whether prompting powerful AI systems makes optimisation obsolete, or whether it remains the hidden engine keeping AI effective, efficient, and safe.
Expect bold claims, sharp rebuttals, real-world reality checks, and plenty of humour as we explore what is gained, and what is at risk, when decisions increasingly move from models to machines.
This lively debate is open to students, professionals, researchers, and anyone curious about how AI and optimisation are shaping the future of decision-making.

For more information including the speakers visit:

Event Partner: OPTIMA
The Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Training Centre in Optimisation Technologies, Integrated Methodologies, and Applications (OPTIMA)