4:1! Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) program, AlphaGo, has won Go Master Lee Sedol in a best-of-five competition held in Korean March 9-15, 2016. Seen by many as a landmark moment for AI, the outcome did not come as a surprise, considering the excellent combination of 1920 CPUs with sophisticated AI algorithms, including neural networks and Monte Carlo tree search (Gibney, 2016; Silver et al., 2016). Indeed, research on distributed computing and artificial intelligence (DCAI) has matured during the last decade and many effective applications are now deployed, performing an increasingly important role in modern computer science, including the two most hyped technologies: Internet of Things and Big Data. Indeed, it is fair to say that the application of artificial intelligence in distributed environments is becoming an essential element of high added value and economic potential. As a testimony to the considerable momentum in R&D activities regarding DCAI, this special issue contains six outstanding papers from the 12th International Conference on DCAI and 13th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems held in the University of Salamanca, Spain, June 2015. The selected contributions cover new theories, techniques, and approaches on DCAI systems, from distributed adaptive searching to group decision making, from multi-agent system for crisis management to multi-robot scheduling for flow shop, and from ambient intelligence for entertainment to multi-camera monitoring systems for rehabilitation therapy.