King’s College London moves to expand AI leadership with new interdisciplinary professorships
King’s College London has confirmed plans to appoint four new AI-focused professors as part of a wider push to embed artificial intelligence across research, teaching, and institutional practice.
King’s College London has announced the creation of four new AI+ professorships, extending a major recruitment drive designed to strengthen interdisciplinary artificial intelligence research across the university.
The roles sit within King’s broader AI+ strategy, which aims to integrate AI across disciplines ranging from health and bioscience to law, business, and the humanities.
Building academic capacity beyond computer science
The new professorships are intended to provide senior research leadership across multiple faculties rather than concentrating AI expertise within a single department. According to King’s, the appointments will work closely with the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Futures Institute, both of which coordinate AI activity across the university.
The posts follow the launch earlier this year of up to 20 AI+ Academic Fellow positions, which were designed to build early- and mid-career research capacity. Together, the fellowships and professorships are expected to create a critical mass of AI researchers able to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries.
Research, teaching, and institutional change
Beyond research output, the new professors are expected to shape how AI is used in teaching and assessment, supervise postgraduate and undergraduate students, and contribute to externally funded research programs. King’s has positioned the roles as part of a longer-term ambition to become an “AI-first” university, responding to the growing influence of large language models, generative AI, and algorithmic decision-making across higher education.
The university has also indicated that further AI+ professorial appointments will follow later in the academic year, with additional roles expected to focus specifically on educational innovation.
King’s has emphasized that the AI+ initiative is designed to address societal and ethical considerations alongside technical development. The university’s AI strategy highlights governance, fairness, sustainability, and real-world application as central themes, with the Institute for Artificial Intelligence acting as a convening hub for researchers across nine faculties.
Applications for the current round of professorships close at the end of January 2026, with appointments expected to play a role in shaping King’s long-term research direction and external partnerships in AI.
ETIH Innovation Awards 2026
Entries are now open for the ETIH Innovation Awards 2026, recognizing education technology organizations and initiatives working across AI, workforce development, and digital learning. The awards are open to submissions from the UK, the Americas, and internationally, with entries assessed on evidence of impact across K–12, higher education, and lifelong learning.
