Friday, 31 July 2026, 13:30 – 18:00
HCII2026 Design Café on Human-AI Teaming (HAT)
Second edition
The HCII2026 Design Café on Human–AI Teaming (HAT) builds upon and aims to further develop the findings and outcomes of the HCII2025 Design Café (1st edition). While informed by prior results, the 2026 edition is not constrained by them. Instead, it deliberately opens space for continued critical reflection, creative exploration, and the development of robust, forward-looking solutions to pressing and still unresolved questions.
Indicative examples of HAT-topics are:
- Effectiveness of Human versus AI leadership.
- Impact of human-led versus AI-led leadership on team performance.
- Controlling the level of agents' autonomy in Human-Agent collaboration.
- Impact of HAT on the quality and speed of solutions for major sustainability challenges.
- Consequences of (De-) Humanization of AI.
These and other challenges will be part of this HCII2026 Design Café on HAT, taking place on Friday, 31 July, 1:30 – 6:00 p.m.
The results of the HCII2026 Design Café will be published.
It is not a prerequisite for participation to have attended the previous HCII Design Café. Any expert who wishes to actively contribute is welcome to join the HCII2026 Design Café.
Please note that registration is required, and the number of participants is limited to ensure an engaging and interactive experience.
The HCII Design Café format
The HCII Design Café is an interactive satellite event to be held in person during the HCII2026 conference. Its goal is to provide a forum for (re)thinking and discussing HCI issues in the context of broader topics relevant to the society and the economy.
Following the successful previous HCII Design Cafés and based on the findings of the HCII2025 Design Café on HAT (1st edition), it is built on a proven valuable participatory scheme for engaging on specific topics, in a moderated small group, with interested stakeholders that come from different professions in related fields. The aim is to stimulate open dialogue, constructive deliberations, informal but meaningful collaboration to empower creativity and inspiration in a casual atmosphere, and to promote innovative approaches for transforming ideas into practice.
Context
With the enormously rapid advancements of technology in general and the increasing adoption and utilization of Artificial Intelligence (AI), in particular, in a wide range of application areas, the nature of human work must be subjected to review and evaluation.
We focus on the following approach:
Humans and AI have each different unique strengths, the impact of which varies in the context of various application domains. In this respect, the development of a “team-concept” is required, based on collaboration models and ways of coupling and synchronizing the strengths of humans with the strengths of AI. The goal is to use the best of both “worlds”, to optimize results and the ways to achieve them efficiently and effectively, keeping in mind that different mindsets and approaches can significantly impact the outcomes Synchronization can focus on various overarching goals, such as cost effectiveness, high-quality results, and/or sustainability, humanity and prosperity.
HCII2025 Design Café on Human-AI Teaming (HAT) – First edition
The HCII2025 Design Café focused on a HAT-configuration that requires humans to be in the loop and in control. Employing a team perspective, it seems obvious that joint collaborative work of people and machines (here AI-based components) could solve complex problems and tasks more effectively. Given the complexity of many challenges humankind is confronted with (climate change, starvation, natural resources, pandemics, biodiversity, fake news, etc.), humans need the support of digital technologies, including AI (e.g., pattern recognition, intelligent data processing, smart scientific visualization, machine learning, generative AI). On the other hand, AI needs Human Intelligence (HI) for defining the goals and constraints when tackling these challenges, especially when following an ethics- and value-based approach. Furthermore, HI is needed for providing inspiration and guidance when solving problems which require creativity and visionary thinking.
The HCII2025 Design Café explored how the architecture and framework of a HAT-configuration can be developed in a human-centered way (Human-/Humanity-Centered-Design approach) and in accordance with the policies of the EU AI ACT.
Organization and moderation
The HCII026 Design Café is conceived, coordinated, and moderated by Christine Riedmann-Streitz (MarkenFactory GmbH and Goethe-University, Germany). It will feature a keynote speech by Norbert Streitz (Smart Future Initiative, Germany). Discussions at the HCII2026 Design Café will be hosted by: Helmut Degen (Siemens Corporation, USA), Pei-Luen Patrick Rau (Tsinghua University, P.R. China), and George Margetis and Stavroula Ntoa (FORTH-ICS, Greece).
A more detailed schedule with the specific issues will be announced in due time. Please stay tuned.