Last week, members of the Tech Square community gathered for a secret meeting of the minds. A new event series called Brains in the Bar convened to spark conversation about artificial intelligence. The question that both inspired the gathering and earned attendees their invitation: "Where would you choose a human over perfectly accurate AI?"

Buildings, lights, streets, and sidewalks. The built environment is the designed spaces that we live in, work from, and travel through. Seung Jae Lieu’s research at Georgia Tech focuses on the built environment, and specifically, where it is possible to walk from one place to another, known as walkability. Lieu developed the “Harmony of Amenities” metric to explore why people choose to walk or drive, even when an area has nearby amenities.

Every image you see online has already been shaped before it reaches you. It is filtered, ranked, and delivered through systems that decide what deserves attention. Hyunha Lim’s work starts there, inside that flow of images, and then pulls them out of circulation.

In a typical smart home, intelligence comes at a cost. Cameras track movement. Sensors require batteries. Devices connect through fragmented systems that demand constant maintenance. TSRB researcher and PhD candidate Yibo Fu is exploring a different model. One where everyday objects quietly signal their use without electronics, cameras, or friction added to daily life.

In the middle of Tech Square at TSRB, a smartphone sits snug inside what looks like a slightly oversized case. A small cuvette of urine slides into place. The flashlight kicks on. A few seconds later, the screen displays something that a dipstick (or even a trained eye) simply cannot produce: a precise, quantitative number.

A simple observation on Georgia Tech’s campus led Joseph Lee to rethink how people enter sales. AGORA turns everyday communication into a scalable, low-barrier training ground for building one of the workforce’s most valuable skills.

Ever wonder what light and shade sounds like? Or what would it be like to dance with artificial intelligence? Celebrating a semester of creativity, exploration, and interdisciplinary research, graduate students and professors from Georgia Tech’s Digital Media Program shared their latest creative innovations at the annual Digital Media Demo Day on Thursday, April 23, 2026, at the Tech Square Research Building.

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In Tech Square, startups and Fortune 500 companies work within blocks of each other. But proximity alone does not guarantee collaboration. That gap is where Engage operates.

Studio B is growing.

Following its initial launch, Phase II of the coworking and office space located on the 11th floor of the Biltmore Innovation Center is now complete. The expansion responds to early demand from founders, operators, and small teams looking for a flexible entry point into the Tech Square ecosystem.

“We have to design with uncertainty based on what is not known about sea level rise, climate, and different futures,” said Matthijs Bouw, presenter at the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics (CURA) 2026 Urban Resilience Leadership Symposium. At the symposium, experts and researchers shared how navigating uncertainty about the impacts of climate change is shaping city planners' actions to build urban resilience.

Atlanta doesn’t need to reinvent community; it needs to activate it. The next phase of growth for the city’s startup ecosystem won’t come from more events, programming, or even capital. It will come from more people helping each other. And when people know who to connect, what a strong introduction looks like, and perceived risks are reduced, participation increases.

TSRB researcher and Georgia Tech PhD candidate Mohsin Yousufi, originally trained as an architect, is now working at the intersection of civic tech and epistemic justice. His research asks why lived experience is often dismissed in public systems and what it takes to make it count.

“You are not alone, and your experience is valued.” These are core messages that Dr. Ethan Trinh has for Asian LGBTQ+ immigrant and refugee communities in Atlanta. Dr. Ethan Trinh’s digital humanities project, Stories of In-Betweenness: An AI-Assisted Memory Map of Atlanta’s Asian LGBTQ+ Immigrant and Refugee Communities, has been awarded an Atlanta Interdisciplinary Artificial Intelligence (AIAI) Network 2025-2026 seed grant.

A weekly meetup, prompted by curiosity about the possibilities of building with artificial intelligence (AI), is brewing at the Atlanta Technology Development Center (ATDC). On Monday mornings, builders, founders, and researchers gather first for a cup of coffee, then to share what they’ve been building with AI, get feedback, and brainstorm ideas.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly stepping into the world of medicine. Large language models can summarize clinical notes, answer health questions, and assist physicians in diagnosing disease. In places where doctors are scarce and healthcare infrastructure is limited; these tools promise to expand access to care. But there is a problem hiding inside the data…