The SYNERGY 2025 workshop was held at the Fourth International Conference on Hybrid Human-Artificial Intelligence (HHAI) in Pisa, Italy. The workshop explored the intersection of advanced visual interfaces and AI, investigating models for collaboration, ethics, and practical AI applications in augmenting human cognition. Through keynote presentations, interactive exercises, and collaborative discussions, the workshop fostered interdisciplinary dialogue aligned with HHAI's focus on innovative HCI research.
The half-day workshop employed an innovative format designed to promote active participation and collaborative knowledge construction. The session began with a keynote presentation sharing our ideas about what elements are important when designing Human-AI systems in decision-making contexts, establishing foundations for subsequent discussions.
Following the keynote, participants engaged in a “flash talk madness” session where each of the 13 accepted papers was presented in exactly 2 minutes using a single slide, creating an energetic overview of the submitted work.
The workshop then proceeded through three structured exercises: Exercise 1: Discussion Participants worked in small groups to critically examine and refine the keynote, discussing categories, definitions, and theoretical foundations through targeted provocations about collaboration, trust, reliance, and ecological validity.
Exercise 2: Paper Classification Groups collaboratively positioned submitted papers, identifying where contributions fit, areas of density and sparsity, and works that challenged existing categorizations.
Exercise 3: Synthesis and Mapping An ambulatory plenary session where participants physically arranged poster materials to create thematic connections and visualize relationships between diferent approaches and findings.
The workshop received 15 paper submissions addressing various aspects of human-AI collaboration. Following peer review, 13 papers were accepted, representing diverse perspectives on interactive decision-making systems, adaptive collaboration frameworks, evaluation methods, and implementation architectures. From these accepted contributions, 10 papers were selected for publication in these proceedings.
The accepted papers were:
Selected authors will be invited to submit extended versions of their work to a future special issue, providing an opportunity for deeper exploration of their research contributions.
The workshop attracted participants from multiple disciplines, including HCI practitioners and researchers, AI scholars, and technology enthusiasts, creating the rich interdisciplinary dialogue that characterizes the SYNERGY community.
Tommaso Turchi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pisa (Italy). His research focuses on Human-Centered AI and End-User Development. He has worked on various research projects related to the interaction with AI systems and is currently investigating the use of Design Fiction for AI-as-a-service applications in the medical field. His most recent work includes the development of a co-design toolkit to identify and address bias in ML-based collaborative decision-making domains.
Alan Dix is Professorial Fellow at Cardif Metropolitan University (United Kingdom) and Emeritus Professor of the Computational Foundry at Swansea University. He is known for his HCI research, including a core textbook and pioneering work in mobile interfaces and machine learning bias. He is a member of the ACM SIGCHI Academy and his work includes both theoretical foundations and practical applications in diverse fields. Alan is known for his eclectic methods which combine technical, philosophical, and artistic insights, emphasizing the importance of technical creativity. Matt Roach is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Swansea University (United Kingdom), specializing in machine learning for smart city trafic management and fraud detection. His research interests include Machine Learning, Algorithmic Bias, and Human-Computer Interaction. He plays a key role in several large-scale collaborative projects and doctoral training initiatives. Prior to academia, Matt significantly contributed to computing skills development in industry and business sectors.
Alessio Malizia is an Associate Professor at the University of Pisa (Italy). His research focuses on Human-Centered AI and Design Fictions. He’s involved in diferent National and International projects developing novel approaches for improving scientific methods to study Human-Artificial Intelligence Interaction.
Ben Wilson is a PhD candidate at Swansea University having done previous work in the UK National Health Service on health systems development, informatics, clinical outcomes capture and analysis. His current work is on human-machine synergy in relation to decision-making. He is a Research Oficer on the Tango-Horizon project.
The papers presented at the workshop address several critical areas in human-AI collaboration: Interactive Decision-Making Systems Mechanisms and interfaces for real-time human-AI collaboration, including protocols for dynamic task allocation, methods for mutual understanding of capabilities, and approaches for handling disagreement and uncertainty.
Adaptive Collaboration Frameworks Systems that dynamically adjust based on ongoing interaction, featuring real-time assessment of cognitive load, learning mechanisms from human intervention, and context-aware collaboration strategies.
Evaluation Methods Novel approaches to measuring human-AI collaboration efectiveness, including metrics for assessing genuine partnership, methods for evaluating joint decision quality, and frameworks for comparing diferent collaboration models.
Implementation Architectures Practical solutions for building collaborative systems, including software patterns for responsive interaction, methods for maintaining human agency, and realworld case studies with lessons learned.
The workshop particularly welcomed submissions that presented concrete mechanisms for human-AI collaboration, provided empirical evaluation of collaborative systems, demonstrated novel interaction patterns, and addressed practical implementation challenges.
The discussions and contributions from the workshop represent important steps toward realizing truly synergistic human-AI systems. The workshop’s collaborative format and the diverse perspectives represented in the accepted papers continue to advance our understanding of how to design AI systems that genuinely augment human capabilities rather than replace them.
The SYNERGY workshop series remains committed to fostering this critical research area, bringing together researchers and practitioners to tackle the complex challenges of human-AI collaboration through both theoretical frameworks and practical implementations.
• Next Generation EU, in the context of The National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Investment 1.5 Ecosystems of Innovation, Project Tuscany Health Ecosystem (THE), Spoke 3 “Advanced technologies, methods and materials for human health and well-being”, CUP: B83C22003920001; • Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Grant Agreement no. 101120763 — TANGO.