Raffaele Ciriello, The University of Sydney Business School

Martin Adam, University of Goettingen

Zhongyun Zhou, Tongji University

AI companions are conversational systems designed to simulate human-like relationships and deployed as emotional support tools, tutors, and therapeutic assistants. Unlike conventional productivity software, their value derives from sustained interaction and personalised continuity, raising questions about trust, dependency, wellbeing, and how relational dynamics emerge through interactions between users, systems, and contexts.

This special issue invites Information Systems scholarship to examine AI companions through a relational lens extending beyond efficiency metrics. While these systems offer potential benefits such as broadened access to support, they simultaneously raise concerns about surveillance, manipulation, and commodified intimacy, reshaping individual capabilities and organisational practices.

The special issue welcomes theoretically ambitious and empirically grounded research across diverse methodologies that carefully theorise the sociotechnical characteristics of relational AI systems. Submissions should address design, governance, and use implications, with particular interest in interdisciplinary and critical perspectives.

Appel publié par Information Systems Journal. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Dark sides of AI companions, problematic use patterns, and their potential roles in fostering delusions, harmful ideation, and maladaptive dependencies
• Relational perspectives on digital technologies: extending beyond instrumental and performance-based evaluation
• Social presence, parasocial interaction, and relationship formation with AI systems
• Anthropomorphism as a sociotechnical phenomenon: design, effects, and risks
• Design principles for AI systems that promote dignity, autonomy, trust, and human flourishing
• Hyper-personalisation and interaction-level adaptation in AI-mediated relationships
• How AI companions affect loneliness, wellbeing, identity formation, and social connection
• Human transformation through AI interaction: cognition, creativity, identity, and capability development
• Dependency, attachment, persuasion, and behavioural influence in sustained human–AI interaction
• Tensions and paradoxes in human–AI relationships
• AI companions in organisations, including changing work practices, expertise, authority, and control
• AI companions in healthcare, education, customer service, and public services: opportunities and risks
• Platform incentives, business models, and governance logics shaping relational AI
• Alternative governance and ownership models, including cooperative, open-source, and public-interest approaches
• Governance of emotionally sensitive data, privacy, portability, and consent
• Power asymmetries between users, providers, employers, and states in relational AI
• Youth, ageing populations, and other vulnerable stakeholders of relational AI
• Cross-cultural differences in companionship, intimacy, and acceptable machine roles
• Dual-use concerns, including manipulation, radicalisation, fraud, coercion, and political influence
• Regulatory and policy approaches to companion AI and socially consequential AI infrastructures
• Historical, philosophical, feminist, or critical perspectives on human–AI relations

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Extended abstract submission deadline (optional)
• March 31, 2027: Full paper submission deadline

Associate editors

• Anuragini Shirish, IMT Business School
• Arisa Shollo, Copenhagen Business School
• Stan Karanasios, University of Queensland
• Sven Laumer, Friedrich-Alexander University
• Angsana Techatassanasoontorn, Auckland University of Technology
• Christoph Breidbach, University of Queensland
• Hameed Chughtai, Lancaster University
• Evelyn Ng, University of Sydney
• Johan Sæbø, University of Oslo
• Brad McKenna, Norwich Business School
• Riitta Hekkala, Aalto University
• Kai Riemer, University of Sydney
• Dimitra Petrakaki, University of Sussex
• Avijit Sengupta, University of Queensland