Leveraging generative AI for human understanding: meta-requirements and design principles for Explanatory AI as an emerging paradigm

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems increasingly support decision-making across critical domains, yet explainable AI (XAI) approaches prioritise algorithmic transparency over human comprehension. While XAI reveals computational processes for model validation, end users require explanations integrating domain knowledge, contextual reasoning, and professional frameworks. This disconnect reveals a design challenge: existing approaches fail to address how practitioners need to understand and act upon AI recommendations. This paper introduces Explanatory AI as an emerging complementary paradigm where AI systems leverage generative and multimodal capabilities to serve as explanatory partners for human understanding. Unlike traditional XAI, which answers ‘How did the algorithm decide?’ for validation purposes, Explanatory AI addresses ‘Why does this make sense?’ for practitioners making informed decisions. Through theory-informed design, we synthesise multidisciplinary perspectives from cognitive science, communication research, and education with empirical evidence from healthcare and AI expert interviews. Our analysis identifies five dimensions distinguishing Explanatory AI from XAI: explanatory purpose, communication mode, epistemic stance, adaptivity, and cognitive design. We derive five meta-requirements and formulate ten design principles prescribing how to build such systems, illustrated through five UI mockups exemplifying implementation. Explanatory AI operates standalone or combined with XAI, serving distinct purposes in creating systems that genuinely support human reasoning and decision-making.