“The greatest challenge is trust. If people and companies do not trust AI systems, they will not use them and the benefits of AI will go unrealised”
Tomáš Tánczos
Software Engineer Team Lead, DAITABLE
Čo je
jún 19. 2026
AI AWARDS 2026: Three Years of Trustworthy AI in Slovakia
AI is becoming a normal part of company processes, services, and everyday life. Alongside this progress, there’s a growing need to talk about how to develop and deploy AI responsibly. That’s what AI Awards – Trustworthy AI is about. We run this award together with the Hopero project, to make visible Slovak companies and teams that combine technological innovation with ethical principles and values. Our evaluation is based on internationally recognized requirements for trustworthy AI: human oversight, privacy, robustness, transparency, fairness and diversity, alongside societal and environmental well-being, and accountability for how the system operates.
What matters to us is building a collection of real-world examples that other companies can learn from as they explore how to integrate AI into their own products, services and processes.
This year’s winner and finalists
The third year of AI Awards announced its winner at Forbes Business Fest 2026. Four companies reached the finals:
- Evolveum: an AI assistant that speeds up the implementation of identity and access management systems, making it easier to integrate enterprise platforms and strengthening cybersecurity
- O2: a customer-facing AI chatbot that provides real-time support, automates routine requests, and helps keep continuous service availability
- Takeda: a digital assistant for internal HR processes, giving employees quick access to company information and increasing work efficiency
- DAITABLE: a multi-agent AI chatbot built for industrial energy analytics. It processes large volumes of data, flags energy losses, and helps companies find where they can save
The laureate 2026: DAITABLE
This year’s laureate is DAITABLE, a Slovak technology company working on energy management. Their approach is to keep the AI away from the raw data, instead of generating numbers directly, the system generates the analytical steps, which are then run separately. The result is more reliable output and better protection of sensitive data. The final call always stays with the user, who gets not just a recommendation but the underlying data and visualizations behind it. As the team put it, the future of AI will be built on trust, which is why they’re committed to transparency, to making outputs verifiable, and to being upfront about where the technology’s limits are.
Read more about our laureate’s work in an exclusive interview on Forbes.sk.
Three years, one growing community
The first three years of AI Awards show a growing number of Slovak solutions that combine innovation with high ethical standards. Past finalists have come from healthcare, the fight against disinformation, digital identity, moderation of online discussions, and advanced data analytics. The common thread was using AI in a way that brings real societal benefit while minimizing risks.
The people behind the AI Awards
AI Awards is shaped and put together by our team, who are committed to helping Slovak companies build AI that’s both innovative and trustworthy. Here are a few words from some of them:
“We launched AI Awards to help promote a culture of responsible AI and to show that trustworthiness is not a barrier to innovation.”
Mária Bieliková
CEO, KInIT
“AI Awards is fully aligned with our vision to help companies approach the principles of trustworthy AI in a practical and understandable manner.”
Juraj Podroužek
Chair of the AI Awards expert committee
“AI Awards started as a project activity of Hopero, now it is outliving it which is the best proof that it found its place in the ecosystem.”
Ján Dráb
Hopero Project
AI Awards 2025
In May, AI Awards celebrated its second edition, run jointly by KInIT, Hopero, and CERAI. It concluded at Forbes Business Fest 2025, where TrollWall AI was named the laureate. Five finalists reached the final round:
- TrollWall AI: tools for detecting and mitigating harmful content, supporting a safer digital environment
- Elv.ai: combining AI and human expertise to manage online discussions respectfully and constructively
- Medannot: AI for medical imaging analysis, helping healthcare professionals reach more accurate diagnoses
- CISCO: AI integrated into audience interaction to improve safety and efficiency
- Predictive Data Science: turning data into practical insights for smarter decision-making
AI Awards 2024
The first year showed that trustworthy AI is a topic companies find genuinely valuable, well beyond the minimum required by regulation. Based on the results of the first and second evaluation rounds, five finalists were selected:
- AI:Dental: an assistant for dentists, professors, and students interpreting dental X-ray images
- Gerulata Technologies: a tool to fight disinformation
- Innovatrics: a Digital Onboarding Toolkit for remote identity verification applications
- Powerful Medical: AI for diagnosis and management of cardiovascular diseases
- TrollWall: a tool for identifying and managing toxic and vulgar comments on social networks
The laureate, chosen from more than two dozen applicants, was AI:Dental, chosen from more than two dozen applicants. They created a system to improve dental care using AI, automating the diagnosis of dental X-ray images. The committee recognized their effort to cover multiple requirements for trustworthy AI.
