A Unified Systematic Framework for Human-AI Collaboration: Technologies, Evaluation Metrics, and a Tiered Taxonomy
Abstract The rapid development of artificial intelligence has positioned Human-AI Collaboration (HAIC) as a promising paradigm for integrating the complementary strengths of humans and AI systems. However, due to its interdisciplinary nature, existing studies often focus on isolated aspects within specific topics or applications, lacking a unified system-level abstraction. In this paper, we propose a unified HAIC framework grounded in a multi-agent system, encompassing five core technological pillars: situation assessment, social understanding, shared decision and control, human-AI interaction, and collaborative learning. Within this framework, we conduct a literature synthesis to consolidate recent advances across these dimensions. Building on these insights, we introduce a system-level evaluation methodology that integrates multi-dimensional metrics to assess HAIC effectiveness. Finally, we propose a tiered HAIC taxonomy characterizing capability evolution from basic assistance to symbiotic HAIC. Together, these contributions establish a structured, extensible foundation for designing and evaluating next-generation HAIC systems.
Authors
- Shanmin Pang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7217-864X)
- Jianru Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4994-9343)
- Jiehui Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2088-1890)
- Bochao Zou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2126-8159)
- Yizhai Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9022-6369)
- Yu Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-4298-6552)
- Sizhe Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1757-8111)
- Jiaqi Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1582-3195)
- Zhang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8004-1045)
- Naiming Yao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-0797-9314)
- Hongan Wang
- Xing Liu
- Liang Wang
Institutions
- Northwestern Polytechnical University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Institute of Automation (CN)
- Institute of Software (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Zhejiang University (CN)
- Xi'an Jiaotong University (CN)
- University of Science and Technology Beijing (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- National Science Review
- Published
- 2026-10-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwag688
- Primary Topic
- Human-Automation Interaction and Safety
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00