ICDS 2025 Explores the Future of Decision-Making with Autonomous AI Agents

The rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence, powered by Data Science, continues to transform decision-making across diverse domains by enabling deeper insights from large-scale data, automating complex processes, and supporting proactive, real-time intelligence. Reflecting this transformative landscape, the 3rd International Conference in Data Science (ICDS 2025) was successfully held on 25th–26th November 2025 under the theme “Autonomous AI Agents: Redefining Decision-Making in a Data-Driven World.” The conference brought together academics, researchers, data scientists, industry professionals, and undergraduate and postgraduate students to share and discuss novel research findings, ideas, and innovations in the field of data science and artificial intelligence. 

ICDS 2025 featured distinguished keynote and guest speakers from academia and industry. The keynote speakers were Prof. Hiroshi Mamitsuka, Professor at the Bioinformatics Center, Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Japan and Dr. Saw Shier Nee, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. The guest speaker was Dr. Rajitha Navarathna from OCTAVE – Centre of Excellence for Big Data Analytics, John Keells Group. Complementing the main conference, two workshops titled “To Explain or to Predict? Predictive Modelling in the Age of AI” and “Bridging Autonomy and Accountability: AI Agents Explainability and Governance” were conducted on 24th and 26th November 2025, providing participants with practical insights into contemporary AI research and governance challenges. 

ICDS 2025 concluded as a milestone event, celebrating the Silver Jubilee of the Department of Statistics and the 10th Anniversary of the Center for Data Science, University of Colombo, while reaffirming its role as a key platform for advancing collaboration, innovation, and responsible data-driven decision making.