The prestigious award, inspired by the father of AI, John McCarthy, was presented during AI Week 2025
Expert.ai is pleased to announce that Enac, the Italian Civil Aviation Authority, has won the 2025 “John McCarthy” Award. Awarded annually during AI Week and inspired by John McCarthy, the father of AI, the award celebrates companies that stand out for their innovative use of artificial intelligence solutions.
The collaboration with expert.ai is part of Enac’s continuous development in digital transformation, adopting cutting-edge solutions to provide its internal and external users with effective and efficient services. Enac was distinguished for its strategic and innovative contribution in the conception and development of a next-generation virtual agent based on an advanced Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture and integrated with a Hybrid AI approach. The solution designed by expert.ai combines the most sophisticated AI technologies (neurosymbolic AI, Large Language Models, and machine learning) to overcome the limitations of traditional chatbots. The result is a highly evolved conversational interface capable of understanding complex queries and returning verifiable evidence-based responses drawn directly from authorized information sources, significantly minimizing the risk of generating untrustworthy content.
“It is an honor for Enac to receive the John McCarthy Award,” said Pierluigi Di Palma, President, Enac. “This international recognition marks an important milestone in our journey of transformation and innovation, which we are pursuing with vision and determination. The award underscores Enac’s commitment to advancing safe, efficient and sustainable civil aviation for the benefit of passengers, industry operators and a modern Public Administration that is increasingly responsive to citizens’ needs. This evolution also involves integrating artificial intelligence, in partnership with expert.ai.”
“Enac’s victory at one of the most prestigious awards in the made-in-Italy innovation ecosystem shows how focusing on AI is not just a technological choice but a strategic decision that can make a difference in terms of excellence, responsibility and maximum attention to its users,” commented Dario Pardi, President and CEO, expert.ai.
The award ceremony took place on May 14 at 5:30 p.m. on the AI Week Main Stage in Milan.
