Introduction to the Special Issue on Human-Centric Generative AI

Generative AI increasingly reshapes how people engage with interactive systems. It now plays a vital role in designing, studying, and refining human-centered methods that let individuals interact and collaborate with AI, strengthening their agency and control. This special issue highlights the human role in Generative AI and seeks approaches that equip diverse stakeholders across socio-technical contexts to understand, direct, and steer these systems while enabling responsible innovation. We publish in this special issue original research on new interaction techniques that integrate human input into Generative AI’s continual development, studies of interaction paradigms that support more effective human–AI collaboration, and work that deepens understanding of model capabilities. Thus, we aim to build a research community around Human-Centric GenAI that empowers people to actively shape systems in line with their values, needs, and expectations.