Call for Participants: To AI or not to AI - the uses of AI in digital investigations: hands on training in emerging tools and tactics

6 minutes read | First published: July 4, 2025

Are you unsure if, when, and how to use AI in your work? Join us in Berlin for "To AI or Not to AI – The Uses of AI in Digital Investigations", a three-day, in-person event featuring workshops and hands-on collaborative sessions.

You’ll gain practical skills and methodologies to navigate the AI-driven landscape of digital investigations: how AI can support your work, where it may hinder it, and what to watch out for.

Selected participants will critically engage with AI-powered tools and tactics, exploring how they function and reshape the information, influence, and adversarial landscape. You’ll define your own boundaries—deciding when, why, and how to use these tools—while learning to mitigate the risks of over-reliance. We’ll also address the hidden costs and broader implications of using AI, even when used effectively.

What you will learn:

Research and Sourcing Information: Learn how to use AI-enhanced tools for data collection, processing, and analysis. Explore methods for crowd-sourcing information, evaluating the credibility of sources, and automating information retrieval and archiving.
Writing Content Creation: Improve your writing and reporting using AI-assisted tools for drafting, summarising, and refining content while maintaining ethical standards and factual accuracy.

>Multimedia & storytelling:

Fact-Checking and Verification: Strengthen your verification skills with tools for video verification, reverse image search, and AI-based deepfake detection tools. Learn to cross-verify multimedia and online content with a critical, evidence-based approach.
Digital Safety in the Age of AI: Understand the new threats posed by AI in digital surveillance and manipulation. Learn how to conduct risk assessments and implement digital safety protocols using privacy tools.

Program highlights:

Plenary Sessions: Gather all participants for keynotes, presentations, and discussions that encourage shared learning and collaboration.
Thematic Workshops: Expert-led sessions offering in-depth knowledge and practical training on specific topics aligned with the Lab’s themes.
Informal Networking and thematic networking Opportunities: Including film screenings and discussions, site visits across Berlin, self-organised thematic groups or trips, and community dinners to foster connection and exchange.

Who shouldn’t miss this training?

We invite investigators, journalists, media professionals, advocates, rights defenders, and anyone working in public interest digital investigations with beginers and intermediate level and basic comunter skills who values collaboration, creativity, and integrity in uncovering evidence to address today’s societal challenges. This event will provide you with cutting-edge skills, tools, techniques, and collaborative spaces to advance your investigative work and foster new partnerships and ideas.

Application Form: [Link] (Please read the full details before applying).

Apply if you:

Are a investigators, journalists, media professionals, advocates, rights defenders, and anyone working in public interest digital investigations.
Are a beginers and intermediate user
Have basic comunter skills
Wish to further develop and diversify your expertise as well as to share your skills and knowledge with like-minded others in a highly collaborative environment.

Selection Process

We aim to bring together a maximum of 25-35 participants.
Our team of journalists and researchers from Tactical Tech will review the applications, balancing experience, skills, diversity, needs and everyone’s ability to both gain from, and contribute to this handson training.
Applications will be reviewed and considered on a rolling basis, therefore we encourage you to apply early in the process as funded places might fill up by the deadline.
We will inform shortlisted applicants by September and send you an invoice to proceed with the payment.

Costs:

Attendance fee: 990 EURO
Earlybird rate *until September 8th): 890 EURO

Tactical Tech is a non-profit organization that has been advancing the digital fluency of civil society since 2003. This event builds on the successful model of previous Exposing the Invisible Institutes and is an independent Tactical Tech initiative, developed without grant funding to directly respond to the needs and demand from the sector.

To move forward, we require a minimum of 20 confirmed participants. Final confirmation of the event will be shared the first week of September.

What is included?

Welcome reception on the first day of the event
2 and a half full days of workshops and hands-on sessions, and collaborative labs in the setting of Berlin’s ‘House of Journalism’ - Publix
2 full days of catering including breakfasts, coffee breaks and lunches.
All the materials needed for the event

In a nutshell:

What? A 3-day in-person handson training featuring workshops on the responsible and effective use of AI-powered tools in digital investigations.
What to expect? A practical and hands-on overview of relevant AI-powered tools, alternatives to mainstream options, usage guidelines, and collaborative project development.
Who? OSINT investigators, researchers, media professionals, and anyone working in the digital investigation field in the public interest who wish to expand their investigative skills, collaboration opportunities, and knowledge of the topics outlined above.
Why? To gain practical skills and methodologies for navigating today’s AI-driven information landscape, and to network with like-minded others for developing more effective investigations.
When? November 12 - 14 2025, with arrival on November 11 and departure in the late afternoon/evening of 14.
Where? Publix, Berlin, Germany (in person).
Deadline for earlybird rate: August 08 2025 at midnight CET.
Application Form: [Link] (Please read the full details before applying).
Organizers: Tactical Tech.

Contact

If you have any questions about the Residency and the application process, please contact us at partnership@tacticaltech.org

Why?

The digital landscape is evolving rapidly. New tools, methods, and tactics are emerging constantly, and digital investigators must stay up to date and continuously upskill to remain effective in their work. These evolving methodologies pose both ethical and practical challenges for those working in the public interest.

That’s why Tactical Tech has developed the To AI or not to AI - the uses of AI in digital investigations: hands on training in emerging tools and tactics, an annual event designed to equip participants with practical knowledge and hands-on skills for using emerging digital investigation tools and tactics responsibly. Through focused deep dives, participants will explore what various tools and techniques can—and cannot—do, how they are reshaping the information, influence, and adversary landscape, and examine the politics behind these tools: who creates them, who owns them, and what the environmental and labor implications are. Alternative, responsible approaches to using these tools will also be explored.

This event aims to strengthen investigators’ capacities, support the development of their projects, encourage the exchange of innovative investigation practices, foster cross-disciplinary and cross-border collaboration, and enable ethical, high-impact investigations that address today’s interconnected challenges.