On 26 and 27 March 2025, the international project kick-off for the new GENIUS project took place at the University of Hildesheim. The GENIUS project will develop automated solutions and customised tools to improve the various phases of the software development cycle using the advanced capabilities of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) (https://itea4.org/project/genius.html).

Project partners from Germany, United Kingdom, Austria, the Netherlands, Portugal and Turkey took part in the two-day kick-off.

The meeting focused on in-depth discussions of scientific perspectives and applications of generative AI in software engineering. Various workshops helped to shape use cases along the software development lifecycle. Overall, we can look back on a successful kick-off event at which we were able to improve mutual understanding and set up planning for a successful project.

GENIUS is the start of a promising project that aims to make an important contribution to the practical and AI-supported improvement of software development processes – we look forward to the challenges and results to come!