Book excerpt: The 13th International Symposium on Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence 2016 (DCAI 2016) is a forum to present applications of innovative techniques for studying and solving complex problems. The exchange of ideas between scientists and technicians from both the academic and industrial sector is essential to facilitate the development of systems that can meet the ever-increasing demands of today’s society. The present edition brings together past experience, current work and promising future trends associated with distributed computing, artificial intelligence and their application in order to provide efficient solutions to real problems. This symposium is organized by the University of Sevilla (Spain), Osaka Institute of Technology (Japan), and the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (Malaysia)