Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly important in all areas of society, and thus also in the church. This short keynote will share new and exclusive findings from a survey of more than 7,000 church members and church staff in Germany. At the beginning of this year, they were asked to what extent they use AI for which specific purposes, what role AI plays overall in their organisation, what obstacles exist to its introduction, how they view the use of AI ethically in general and specifically within the church, and to what extent they can envisage the use of AI in the context of psychological counselling and pastoral care. Based on these findings, the keynote will discuss necessary consequences for churches as well as for (civil) society in general.
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Open in new tab Holger Sievert is Dean of Studies and Professor of Communication Management at Macromedia University in Cologne. He studied Communication Sciences and Protestant Theology in Münster (Germany) and Aix-en-Provence (France); later, he was also a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge (UK) and the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano (Switzerland). Among other activities, he was responsible for two waves of the study “Typology of Recipients of Protestant Online Church Services” (ReTeOG, 2020/21), academically managed “The Digital Model Congregation” project (2021/2022), and currently leads the extensive study “Digitalisation in the Church Sector” (DiRK, ongoing since 2023).