ToMinHAI at CUI’2025: Theory of Mind in Human-CUI Interaction

New AI developments are enabling CUIs to take on diverse social roles to facilitate interactions with humans. To support such increasingly complex and social interactions, researchers draw from Theory of Mind (ToM)—our ability to attribute mental states like intentions, goals, and emotions to ourselves and others for seamless communication. Given ToM’s importance in human interaction, AI and HCI researchers explore both building ToM-like capabilities in CUIs and understanding how humans attribute mental states to CUIs. These perspectives form the emerging paradigm of Mutual Theory of Mind (MToM) in human-CUI interaction, where both parties iteratively interpret each other’s internal states. Building on the success of the 1st ToMinHAI workshop at CHI 2024, this installment invites researchers from AI, ML, HCI, and related fields to discuss ToM in human-CUI interactions to inform the future design of conversational AI.