Investigating the Impacts of Generative AI on Information Seeking

We conducted an interview study with twelve students on their use of generative AI in academic communication. Students delegated professional messages to AI most where the pressure to sound professional is highest: email to instructors and administrators. AI involvement ranged from correcting the writer's own text to working out and writing the message outright, and students checked AI-written text against two criteria: whether it looks like AI and whether it sounds like them. Building on these findings, we model the AI-mediated process of writing a student--instructor email at the highest level of involvement we observed, and compare it with an unaided model of writing the same messages, built from participants' accounts and a classic model of the writing process. Three differences emerge: the learning loop that builds writing skill is removed, the message is no longer written for its specific recipient, and the confidence a successful exchange returns goes to using the system rather than to the writer's own ability. From these differences we derive two risks, that individual capacities never form and that authenticity and trust in communication become work. Design can respond to both but is unlikely to be enough, so the risks also need research and policy attention.

Generative AI (GenAI) search tools are increasingly used for information seeking, yet their design tends to encourage cognitive offloading, which may lead to passive engagement, selective attention, and informational homogenization. Effective use requires metacognitive engagement to craft good prompts, verify AI outputs, and critically engage with information. We developed MetaCues, a novel GenAI-based interactive tool for information seeking that delivers metacognitive cues alongside AI responses and a note-taking interface to guide users' search and associated learning. Through an online study (N = 146), we compared MetaCues to a baseline tool without cues, across two broad search topics that required participants to explore diverse perspectives in order to make informed judgments. Preliminary findings regarding participants' search behavior show that MetaCues leads to increased confidence in attitudinal judgments about the search topic as well as broader inquiry, with the latter effect emerging primarily for the topic that was less controversial and with which participants had relatively less familiarity. Accordingly, we outline directions for future qualitative exploration of search interactions and inquiry patterns.

Users increasingly rely on consumer-facing generative AI (GenAI) for tasks ranging from everyday needs to sensitive use cases. Yet, it remains unclear whether and how existing security and privacy (S&P) communications in GenAI tools shape users' adoption decisions and experiences. Understanding how users seek, interpret, and evaluate S&P information is critical for designing usable transparency that users can trust and act on. We conducted semi-structured interviews and design sessions with 21 U.S. GenAI users. Our findings suggest that available S&P information rarely drove initial adoption in practice, as participants often perceived it as incomplete, ineffective, or not credible. Instead, they relied on rough proxies (e.g., popularity) to infer S&P practices. After adoption, S&P uncertainty constrained participants' willingness to use GenAI tools, especially for high-stakes purposes, and, in some cases, contributed to discontinued use. Participants therefore called for transparency that supports decisions and actions through trustworthy information (e.g., independent evaluations) and usable interfaces (e.g., on-demand disclosure). We categorize participants' desired design practices into five dimensions to facilitate systematic future investigation into best practices. We conclude with recommendations for researchers, designers, and policymakers to improve S&P transparency in consumer-facing GenAI.