This is the write-up of the plenary talk on low-x and forward physics presented at the DIS2019 workshop. Recent results on photon-induced processes from HERA, RHIC and the LHC are discussed. The material covers advances relevant to the structure of nuclear targets, the potential of photon-induced processes to probe the quark-gluon plasma, results related to the proton structure and a discussion of dissociative production of vector mesons as a new window to study saturation at future electron-ion colliders.