About the conference
AAAI is the broadest of the top AI conferences: machine learning sits alongside planning, knowledge representation, search, multi-agent systems, NLP, vision, and AI-and-society tracks. That breadth makes it a natural venue for work that does not fit the ML-flagship mold.
The cycle is summer-to-winter: abstracts and papers due around August, decisions in late autumn, and the conference each winter. Acceptance rates have recently run in the low twenties of percent.