Overview

More and more people look to chatbots for social and emotional support: using conversational AI for mental health counseling, asking it for relationship advice, prompting it to write and rewrite breakup texts, or even treating AI like a romantic partner ("AI companionship"). These uses are increasingly widespread, and offer an important social and relational outlet for isolated individuals worldwide - but also present profound risk. AI can alter human perceptions, emotions, and judgments, leading individuals to experience delusions and engage in harmful behaviors following extended use.  These emerging and rapidly evolving risks present urgent interpersonal and societal challenges - ones the HCI community is well-positioned to address. 

In this long workshop (two 90 minute sessions), we invite HCI researchers across the sub-communities of digital safety, digital mental health and well-being, and responsible AI to come together and articulate a shared research agenda around the design, governance, and safeguarding of AI for social and emotional use. Read the submitted proposal for more information.

Call for Submissions

Participants interested in attending this workshop can submit a one-page, single authored proposal (maximum 500 words excluding references, or similar effort in another format) to detail their interest in the topic area and relevant experiences to ground the conversation. We strongly encourage junior researchers (e.g., PhD students) to submit proposals. We do not plan to publish accepted proposals due to the sensitive nature of this topic. Authors of accepted proposals must attend and register for the in-person workshop.

You can submit proposals via this form.

Important Dates

• Submissions due: February 2,  Extended to February 11 2026, 11:59 PM AoE

• Accepted submissions announced: February 20, 2026

• In-person workshop at CHI 2026 in Barcelona: Wednesday, April 15, 2026, 14:15 - 18:00 CEST

Planned Schedule

Organizers

• Emily Tseng, Microsoft Research and the University of Washington

• Dan Adler, Cornell University and the University of Michigan

• Ashley Walker, Google

• Renee Shelby, Google Research

• Stevie Chancellor, University of Minnesota

• Eugenia Kim, Microsoft

• Sachin Pendse, University of California, San Francisco

• Renwen Zhang, Nanyang Technological University

Questions?

Please send an email to both:

• Emily Tseng: emtseng [at] uw [dot] edu

• Dan Adler: adlerdan [at] umich [dot] edu

One of us will respond as soon as we can!