PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Michael Witbrock

Michael Witbrock is an artificial intelligence researcher whose work spans machine reasoning, knowledge acquisition and natural language. He earned a BSc (Hons) in physiological psychology at Otago and a computer science PhD at Carnegie Mellon, where he and friends explored genetic art in the 1980s; he later became a principal scientist at Lycos. At Cycorp, he led knowledge-based AI research; at IBM Research, he coauthored a paper about a conversational knowledge-acquisition chatbot, then returned to New Zealand in 2019 to lead the University of Auckland’s Broad AI Lab. He coauthored TRAIL, founded the Strong AI Lab and NAOInstitute, chaired a government AI panel in 2025, and as of October 2026 is Chief Scientist at Primary and a professor at Auckland.

Now at
University of Auckland and Primary
Born
1962
Works
178
Citations
3,749
h-index
29
Badges

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1980s

    Genetic art during his PhD

    He earns a BSc (Hons) in physiological psychology at Otago and a PhD in computer science at Carnegie Mellon. In the 1980s, he and friends explore genetic art during his PhD.

  2. 1999

    Principal scientist at Lycos

    In 1999, he is a principal scientist at Lycos and predicts that keyboards and wires will start to go away.

  3. 2016

    Curious Cat at IBM

    At IBM Research, he coauthors the Curious Cat chatbot paper in 2016. The system uses an existing knowledge base to direct questions to people and check answers for consistency.

  4. By 2019

    Reasoning systems at Cycorp

    By 2019, he leads Cycorp’s knowledge-based AI research, including systems that perform automated reasoning to solve problems and explain their solutions in English.

  5. 2019

    Professor at Auckland

    In 2019, he returns to New Zealand to become Professor of Computer Science at the University of Auckland and run a new Broad AI Lab.

  6. 2021

    TRAIL theorem proving

    He coauthors TRAIL in 2021, a deep reinforcement learning system for first-order logic theorem proving.

  7. 2024–2025

    SAIL and a government AI panel

    By 2024, he is the founder of the NAOInstitute and Strong AI Lab (SAIL) at Auckland. In 2025, he becomes chair of a government panel advising on public agencies’ AI adoption.

  8. As of October 2026

    Chief Scientist at Primary

    As of October 2026, he is Chief Scientist at Primary and a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Auckland. He directs the Strong AI Lab, where his work spans machine learning, reasoning and natural language understanding.

Career

  1. Since 2019University of AucklandProfessor, Founder
  2. NowPrimaryChief Scientist
  3. 2016–2019IBM
  4. 2003–2017CycorpLead, knowledge-based AI research
  5. From 1999LycosPrincipal scientist
  6. NAOInstituteFounder

Education

  1. University of OtagoBSc (Hons) in physiological psychology
  2. Carnegie Mellon UniversityPhD in computer science

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. An Introduction to the Syntax and Content of Cyc i2006 · 355 citations
  2. Image Super-Resolution via Dual-State Recurrent Networks2018 · IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · 248 citationsWith Thomas Huang
  3. Headline generation based on statistical translation2000 · Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) · 243 citations
  4. Dilated Recurrent Neural Networks2017 · neural information processing systems · 227 citationsWith Thomas Huang
  5. Story segmentation and detection of commercials in broadcast news video2002 · 152 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. Of 216 AI researchers who entered public life, 83 held advisory seats and 58 took public rolesIncludes Michael Witbrock. Of 216 AI researchers who entered public life, 83 held advisory seats and 58 took public roles. Another 97 people moved from public careers into AI organizations or research, with 62% of dated records starting from 2020 on.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes University of Auckland. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Auckland. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of Auckland. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Michael Witbrock yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Artificial intelligence: creativity or counterfeit? auckland.ac.nz. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Government Chief Digital Officer appoints AI Expert Advisory Panel dia.govt.nz. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Tech in 2000: The Predictions wired.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Curious cat conversational crowd based and context aware knowledge acquisition chat bot research.ibm.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. AI for good auckland.ac.nz. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach to First-Order Logic Theorem Proving ojs.aaai.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. The architects of AI auckland.ac.nz. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. About Primary — Primary theprimary.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Members | Artificial Intelligence ai.ac.nz. Checked 20 October 2026.