From Munich to Berlin: Bavaria's AI Best Cases in the Spotlight

“What AI solutions does Bavaria have to offer?” - many visitors to re:publica 2025 in Berlin asked us this question over the past three days. The answer to this question could be discovered at our own XPLR: MEDIA stand. Two young companies from Bavaria presented themselves and their AI concepts, which they want to use to make the internet a little bit better.

The Würzburg-based company “Eye-Able” showed how its self-developed AI assistant Ally helps companies to make their websites accessible quickly and effectively. Visitors to the stand were able to try out existing homepages to see how translation, contrast changes or simple language can be used at the touch of a button. Another topic: Eye-Able can use AI to analyze website codes, find errors and suggest solutions in a matter of seconds.

XPLR: MEDIA-Highlight: Our new supplement on the topic “Journalism transparent”

Neuraforge” included a quiz on the topic of deepfakes. The start-up from Rosenheim has developed software that can detect traces of AI in image and video material. This allows real photos to be systematically distinguished from fakes. The quiz results showed that such a tool is becoming increasingly important: visitors to the stand were shown 10 images and had to decide which were genuine and which were AI-generated. Hardly anyone was able to match all the images correctly. The AI image results are now so realistic that they cannot be recognized as fake with the naked eye.

One highlight at our stand was the brand new XPLR supplement on the topic of “Journalism Transparency”. It deals with how journalistic media can manage to gain and retain the trust of their target group - despite growing AI content and tense global politics. One story: the “kolumna” initiative from Lindau on Lake Constance is attempting to rethink local journalism and expand the range of services in the industry by means of newsletters. Ivo Knahn from Mainpost, influencer Verena Prechtl and Konstanze Beyer from RTLZWEI also have their say.

We also tested Berliners' knowledge of Bavaria: Visitors could spin our wheel of fortune and tell us which Bavarian podcasts, series, films, influencers or media events they know. Many a visitor also put on a yodeling or Schuhplattler performance on the trade fair floor - and received Bavarian snack pretzels as a reward.

Our stand partners: Three questions for Tom Gehring, Founders Associate at Eye-Able

Tom, what impression do you take home with you from re:publica?

Tom: My first thought when I arrived at re:publica was: Wow, it's amazing how many young people are here! The atmosphere is totally relaxed and laid-back, the audience is very colorful and diverse. Some young people are looking for guidance and career opportunities, but there are also a lot of media people and decision-makers who were interested in our concept.

How important are events like re:publica for your work?

Tom: Extremely important for two reasons: Firstly, we can acquire potential customers here and get the chance to present ourselves and our work in detail. On the other hand, it's also about getting the topic of digital accessibility out to more people. Especially here at re:publica, there's already a lot of an educated audience, but there's still room for improvement and we're happy to be part of the change.

What was your personal re:publica highlight?

Tom: For us, attending the trade fair was a great opportunity to make valuable contacts.  We received lots of interested questions and had long conversations. The visitors to our stand really took the time to get to know and understand our company - now we're excited to see whether these conversations will lead to a cooperation.

“Neuraforge": New contacts and valuable input from stand guests from all over Germany

Three days of re:publica are behind you - what feedback did you get from your stand guests?

Anatol: The reactions were consistently positive. We had many and, above all, totally different visitors who were interested in us and our idea. With our quiz, we had a low-threshold gamification approach - that attracts people, whether schoolchildren or a professional audience. Some of them were well served with just a little extra information, others stayed for a long time and asked lots of questions.

In your quiz, you could check whether you could recognize which images were real and which were AI-generated. How much know-how about deepfakes did your visitors bring with them?

Anatol: It was very different. Some are already very knowledgeable in this area, others found it more difficult. On average, younger people tend to have a little more awareness.

Anika: In the quiz, we show our participants ten pictures and ask them whether they are fake or real. We've played the game 300 times over the past three days and only a handful of stand guests were able to correctly match all ten pictures. Achieving this score is super difficult because you often can't recognize deepfakes with the naked eye. I remember one group of students who got all the answers right - but they had already studied the subject in depth at school.

Anatol: That's exactly what we want to show: Even if you have dealt with the topic in depth, there is always some residual uncertainty - and we offer a solution for that.

Have you also been able to make contacts with whom you would like to collaborate afterwards?

Anatol: As far as that goes, re:publica was very successful for us at first glance. Some relevant decision-makers visited our stand and were very impressed by our work. We'll see what comes of this in the coming weeks.