Much AI research focuses on solving specific tasks for people – generating content or automating processes. While such systems may be powerful, there are risks that this approach impact the way people think and therefore learn, build skills, and deploy expertise.
The Tools for Thought (T4T) team aims to help researchers and developers imagine how AI might help people to think better, so that:
- as well as getting the job done, it helps us better understand and figure out the job.
- as well as creating content, it helps us think more critically and with more insight throughout an entire workflow.
- as well as seeking speed and efficiency, it helps us create outcomes that are more effective and of higher quality because they are the product of better answers from better questions.
- as well as augmenting individual cognition and tasks, it augments collective cognition and workflows.
- as well as automating known processes, it helps organisations predict and explore the unknown.
Outputs of T4T include principles and guidelines for supporting cognition in any user experience, as well as systems and new technologies that stand as practical instantiations of what it means to support better thinking using AI.

Areas of Interest
People
The Tools for Thought team is interdisciplinary, mixing experts in social science, computer science, engineering, and design.
The team is co- lead by Richard Banks and Sean Rintel.
Members
Advait Sarkar
Senior Researcher
Britta Burlin
Principal Design Manager
Gonzalo Ramos
Principal Researcher
Ian Drosos
Researcher
Jack Williams
Senior Researcher
Leon Reicherts
Researcher
Lev Tankelevitch
Senior Researcher
Martin Grayson
Principal Research Software Development Engineer
Payod Panda
Design Engineering Researcher
Pratik Ghosh
Senior Research Designer
Richard Banks
Principal Design Manager
Sean Rintel
Senior Principal Research Manager
Sponsors
Siân Lindley
Senior Principal Research Manager
Abigail Sellen
Distinguished Scientist and Lab Director