{"id":1149887,"date":"2025-09-16T02:58:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T09:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-research-item&#038;p=1149887"},"modified":"2025-09-16T02:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T09:58:08","slug":"understanding-protecting-and-augmenting-human-cognition-with-generative-ai-a-synthesis-of-the-chi-2025-tools-for-thought-workshop","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/understanding-protecting-and-augmenting-human-cognition-with-generative-ai-a-synthesis-of-the-chi-2025-tools-for-thought-workshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding, Protecting, and Augmenting Human Cognition with Generative AI: A Synthesis of the CHI 2025 Tools for Thought Workshop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Generative AI (GenAI) radically expands the scope and capability of automation for work, education, and everyday tasks, a transformation posing both risks and opportunities for human cognition. How will human cognition change, and what opportunities are there for GenAI to augment it? Which theories, metrics, and other tools are needed to address these questions? The CHI 2025 workshop on Tools for Thought aimed to bridge an emerging science of how the use of GenAI affects human thought, from metacognition to critical thinking, memory, and creativity, with an emerging design practice for building GenAI tools that both protect and augment human thought. Fifty-six researchers, designers, and thinkers from across disciplines as well as industry and academia, along with 34 papers and portfolios, seeded a day of discussion, ideation, and community-building. We synthesize this material here to begin mapping the space of research and design opportunities and to catalyze a multidisciplinary community around this pressing area of research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Generative AI (GenAI) radically expands the scope and capability of automation for work, education, and everyday tasks, a transformation posing both risks and opportunities for human cognition. How will human cognition change, and what opportunities are there for GenAI to augment it? Which theories, metrics, and other tools are needed to address these questions? The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":null,"msr_publishername":"","msr_publisher_other":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_edition":"","msr_editors":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_issue":"","msr_journal":"","msr_number":"","msr_organization":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_page_range_start":"","msr_page_range_end":"","msr_series":"","msr_volume":"","msr_copyright":"","msr_conference_name":"","msr_doi":"","msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_mag_id":"","msr_pubmed_id":"","msr_other_authors":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_award":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_institution":"","msr_host":"","msr_version":"","msr_duration":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_s2_match_type":"","msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_published_date":"2025-8-1","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_notes":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_conference_url":"","msr_journal_url":"","msr_s2_pdf_url":"","msr_year":0,"msr_citation_count":0,"msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_s2_match_confidence":0,"msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":true,"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_pub_ids":[],"msr_hide_image_in_river":null,"footnotes":""},"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13556,13554],"msr-publication-type":[193715],"msr-publisher":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[269148,269142],"msr-field-of-study":[246694,255217],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[268188],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-1149887","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-research-area-human-computer-interaction","msr-locale-en_us","msr-post-option-approved-for-river","msr-post-option-include-in-river","msr-field-of-study-artificial-intelligence","msr-field-of-study-human-computer-interaction-4"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2025-8-1","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"doi","viewUrl":"false","id":"false","title":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.48550\/arXiv.2508.21036","label_id":"252679","label":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_citation_count":0,"msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_pdf_url":null,"msr_attachments":[],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Lev Tankelevitch","user_id":43209,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Lev Tankelevitch"},{"type":"text","value":"Elena L. Glassman","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Jessica He","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Aniket Kittur","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Mina Lee","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Srishti Palani","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Advait Sarkar","user_id":37146,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Advait Sarkar"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Gonzalo Ramos","user_id":36419,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Gonzalo Ramos"},{"type":"text","value":"Yvonne Rogers","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Hari Subramonyam","user_id":0,"rest_url":false}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[199561],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[1142579],"msr_project":[1053711],"publication":[],"video":[],"msr-tool":[],"msr_publication_type":"article","related_content":{"projects":[{"ID":1053711,"post_title":"Tools for Thought","post_name":"tools-for-thought","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2024-07-03 05:21:39","post_modified":"2026-04-26 18:27:28","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/tools-for-thought\/","post_excerpt":"Better thinking through AIA People-Centric AI Project \"What would you rather have: a tool that thinks for you, or a tool that makes you think?\" Senior Researcher Advait Sarkar presented at TEDAI (opens in new tab) in Vienna on September 26th 2025. \u00a9 TEDAI Vienna \/ Robert Leslie Many AI tools focus on solving specific tasks like content generation or process automation. Though useful and powerful, these systems may affect how we think, learn, build&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/1053711"}]}}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/1149887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/1149887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1149891,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/1149887\/revisions\/1149891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publisher?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=1149887"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=1149887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}