Book excerpt: Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a vital part in the continued development of computer science and informatics. The AI applications employed in fields such as medicine, economics, linguistics, philosophy, psychology and logical analysis, not forgetting industry, are now indispensable for the effective functioning of a multitude of systems. This book presents the papers from the 20th biennial European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, ECAI 2012, held in Montpellier, France, in August 2012. The ECAI conference remains Europe's principal opportunity for researchers and practitioners of Artificial Intelligence to gather and to discuss the latest trends and challenges in all subfields of AI, as well as to demonstrate innovative applications and uses of advanced AI technology. ECAI 2012 featured four keynote speakers, an extensive workshop program, seven invited tutorials and the new Frontiers of Artificial Intelligence track, in which six invited speakers delivered perspective talks on particularly interesting new research results, directions and trends in Artificial Intelligence or in one of its related fields. The proceedings of PAIS 2012 and the System Demonstrations Track are also included in this volume, which will be of interest to all those wishing to keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of AI.