Sean Rintel

Senior Principal Research Manager

A blue gradient background with subtle diagonal lines and a curved dark accent in the top right corner. Centered in bold white text with a soft shadow is the word “Promptions,” enclosed within a rounded white border. The design is clean and modern, suggesting a digital or creative theme.

Promptions on AI Foundry Labs

Promptions dynamically generates UI to help users steer AI responses more effectively. It’s simple, effective, and easily customizable, making it suitable for developers from individual vibe-coders to enterprise…

Tools for Thought: Better Thinking with AI

Much AI research focuses on solving specific tasks for people – generating content or automating processes. While such systems may be powerful, there are risks that this approach…

A hybrid workspace throughout with both onsite and virtual people at and around a long table

AI and Intentional Meetings

We aim to help organizations develop a goal-oriented meeting lifecycle that leverages Generative AI to construct dynamic goal-driven interfaces that adapt to organizational and team tasks and contexts.…

Four-panel collage showing mixed reality and virtual interaction: - Person wearing headset, gesturing with hands toward virtual objects. - Second person with headset, interacting with virtual interface. - Two virtual avatars, one in purple, one in green, appearing to converse. - Three avatars in a virtual room with tables, suggesting collaboration

Avatars in mixed-reality meetings

We conducted a within-subjects study to examine how realistic faces and cartoon faces on avatars affect communication, task satisfaction, sense of presence, and mood perception in mixed reality…

About

I am a social scientist of human-computer interaction, exploring distributed team collaboration and AI workflows at Microsoft Research. I work in Brisbane, Australia, reporting to the Cambridge UK Lab.

I am currently part of the People-Centric AI team, which develops knowledge, model capabilities, and experiences that enable human agency and skill, support creativity and collaboration, and ensure equitable representation and participation. I previously co-lead the Tools for Thought project and lead the Intentional Meetings project.

I have been a member of a multiple global prize-winning Hackathon teams at Microsoft (A Grand Prize winning project, five global category First Place projects, and one global category Second Place project in the annual Microsoft Hackathon). One of these Hackathon projects is on the Garage Wall of Fame: Mobile Sharing and Companion Experiences for Microsoft Teams Meetings. This was the first prize winning project that I was on, and it became a feature in Microsoft Teams.

I have been a PC member of CHI and CSCW many times and I review for many major HCI, communication, and technology journals and conferences.