[Commlist] Interdisciplinary Human-AI Interaction Conference 2026

Conference

University of Warwick
Coventry, United Kingdom

Date: 27/11/2026 - 27/11/2026
Registration deadline: 18/11/2026
Call for papers ending on: 16/10/2026

Call for Contributions

Following the inaugural Human-AI Interaction Symposium in 2025, we are
pleased to announce that the Interdisciplinary Human-AI Interaction
Conference 2026 will take place during 9:30am-5pm on 27 November 2026
(GMT) at the University of Warwick. The conference is generously funded
by Warwick’s Interdisciplinary Research Spotlights (Digital, Data Science
& AI).

This year’s conference will explore the theme: Relationality and
Reflexivity in Human-AI Interaction. Artificial intelligence (AI) is now
being used more and more in everyday life, which affects the ways in which
people work, learn, communicate, create, make decisions and understand the
world surrounding them. This has led to more complicated kinds of 
interaction
between humans and AI and has raised questions concerning the wider
institutional and social implications of these technologies. Since AI 
systems
have become more capable and have been incorporated into human activities,
research into human-AI interaction has increasingly shifted away from seeing
AI mainly as a passive technological tool to now focusing on more
interactive, participatory and relational types of human-AI engagement.

This also means that as there are now sustained and emotionally significant
ways in which humans interact with AI, questions arise as to whether and in
what way concepts previously used to describe human-human relationships, 
such
as attachment, intimacy, and reciprocity, can be applied and redefined in
order to understand interactions and relationships between humans and AI.
Given these recent developments, we are inviting submissions that examine
human-AI interaction as a dynamic process which is situated within wider
social, institutional, cultural, and material contexts, with a special
emphasis on relational and reflexive perspectives.

By taking a relational approach, one highlights the ways in whichAI
becomes part of and contributes to the broader relationships that involve
individuals, communities, organisations, institutions, and technologies.
A reflexive approach, on the other hand, underscores the mutual processes
by which humans and AI systems influence, respond to, and alter one another
over time as a result of their interaction. Seeing human-AI interaction from
these two interwoven perspectives invites attention to the temporal and
evolving nature of human-AI relationships, including how they develop, are
maintained, negotiated, disrupted, or transformed over time.

Bringing relationality and reflexivity together, this conference asks 
what we
can learn from understanding human-AI interaction as an ongoing process of
relational formation and transformation, rather than simply in terms of 
human
design, use, or assessment of technology. We welcome contributions that look
into how human-AI relationships emerge, evolve, are negotiated, resisted,
maintained or transformed in educational, professional, organisational,
social, creative, and everyday contexts. We also encourage contributions 
that
explore how human-AI relationships intersect with human relationships and
sociotechnical contexts, and that critically consider both the possibilities
and limits of reciprocity, agency, and relationality in human-AI 
interaction.

Potential themes for contributions

Contributions drawing on discourse and interactional data are particularly
welcome. Possible areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

the temporal and evolving nature of human-AI relationships;trust, authority,
agency, power, equity, responsibility, and the negotiation of expertise in
human-AI interaction;resistance, appropriation, adaptation, and repair as
processes through which human-AI relationships are shaped and
transformed;collaboration, dependency, care, attachment, intimacy, and
affective relations with AI;asymmetry, reciprocity, mutuality, and the
reconceptualisation of human relational concepts in human-AI interaction;how
interaction with AI may reshape human practices, identities, relationships,
and forms of knowing;how human practices, values, norms, and institutional
contexts shape AI development, deployment, and use;how AI may reshape
relationships between humans, communities, organisations, and
institutions;how sustained interaction with AI may reshape users’
preferences, expectations, practices, and ways of relating to
others;methodological approaches for examining the formation and
transformation of human-AI relationships and the reciprocal processes 
through
which humans and AI may influence one another through interaction;
We welcome theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions from
diverse disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, including 
education,
linguistics, discourse studies, sociology, humanities, communication,
human-computer interaction, psychology, and related fields. Researchers at
all career stages are warmly invited to contribute, with postgraduate and
early-career researchers especially encouraged to participate.

The conference will feature:

Keynote speeches and panel discussions from leading interdisciplinary
scholarsOpportunities for networking and collaboration across
disciplinesHybrid access to support global participation
Submission of abstract

We invite contributions for 10-minute talks at this conference. Speakers are
encouraged to share work at any stage of development, including ongoing
projects, as the aim of the conference is to foster dynamic discussions and
collaboration.

Abstracts should be a maximum of 300 words (including references, with the
aim, methods, previous research/theory, and (expected) results of the study
clearly stated)Please submit your abstract by filling out this
form: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/p7vxYaLS1u?origin=lprLink
[3]Submission deadline: 16 October 2026Notification of acceptance: 23 
October
2026
Co-created output (to be confirmed)

Selected contributors may be invited to co-create a digital output based on
their submissions. Further details will be provided after the conference.

Registration (No registration fee)

Please register to attend the conference via this form by 18 November
2026: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/VVCbndJJaw?origin=lprLink [4]

Enquiries

Please contact: (Hii /at/ warwick.ac.uk)


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