Tools for Thought: Understanding, Protecting, and Augmenting Human Cognition with Generative AI — From Vision to Implementation
Authors: Zelun Tony Zhang, Nick von Felten, Leon Reicherts, Lev Tankelevitch, Zhitong Guan, Sean Rintel, Yue Fu, Jessica He, Kenneth Holstein, Advait Sarkar, Gonzalo Ramos, Anuschka Schmitt, Anjali Singh, Haotian Li, Srishti Palani, Peter Dalsgaard
Building on the first Tools for Thought (TfT) workshop at CHI 2025, we invite researchers, designers, and practitioners to further operationalise approaches for the design, usage, and evaluation of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) as a TfT. The first goal of the workshop is to put into focus which outcomes a TfT should help people achieve to effectively augment their cognition while avoiding its erosion. Secondly, we will explore how to achieve these outcomes through design and usage strategies. Third, the workshop will also address what a TfT needs for its successful adoption and integration into people’s flow, so that they can benefit from the tools’ potential in their own terms. By focussing on these three research goals, the workshop aims to further develop and advance the multidisciplinary TfT community interested in exploring research frameworks, theories, methods, and approaches to conceptualising, designing, and researching GenAI as a TfT.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{zhang2026tools,
author = {Zhang, Zelun Tony and von Felten, Nick and Reicherts, Leon and Tankelevitch, Lev and Guan, Zhitong and Rintel, Sean and Fu, Yue and He, Jessica and Holstein, Kenneth and Sarkar, Advait and Ramos, Gonzalo and Schmitt, Anuschka and Singh, Anjali and Li, Haotian and Palani, Srishti and Dalsgaard, Peter},
title = {Tools for Thought: Understanding, Protecting, and Augmenting Human Cognition with Generative AI — From Vision to Implementation},
booktitle = {CHI 2026},
year = {2026},
month = {April},
publisher = {ACM},
url = {https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/tools-for-thought-understanding-protecting-and-augmenting-human-cognition-with-generative-ai-from-vision-to-implementation/},
}