Abstract
German is the second most widely spoken language in the EU. The last decade has seen strongly perceptible language change, trending towards the simplification of the grammatical system, a rapidly growing number of anglicisms, a decreasing prevalence of dialects, and an increase in socio-political debates on matters such as language policies and gender-neutral language. Many technologies and resources for German are available, which is also due to numerous well-established research institutions and a thriving Language Technology (LT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry. In order to withstand in the digital sphere, it is important that incentives for research, digital education and also concrete opportunities for marketing and deploying LT applications are put at the forefront of future AI strategies.