Challenges and Opportunities for Participatory Design of Conversational Agents for Young People's Wellbeing

2025-08-20

AI Summary

This study addresses critical challenges in deploying AI conversational agents to support child and adolescent well-being across culturally diverse contexts—particularly inadequate cultural adaptation in technical design and insufficient youth participation. To bridge these gaps, the project conducted cross-cultural participatory design across four countries, actively engaging children and adolescents as co-researchers and co-designers of conversational agents. Integrating human-computer interaction principles, conversational system development, and participatory methodologies, the study identified key barriers: linguistic diversity, divergent value systems, and unequal digital literacy. It proposes a practice framework comprising “tiered participation,” “contextual calibration,” and “iterative validation.” The outcomes enhance the cultural inclusivity and contextual adaptability of AI systems and, for the first time, establish a youth-well-being–oriented design paradigm for conversational agents tailored to Global South and multicultural settings.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Conversational Systems for Recommendation & Retrieval

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Assisted, interactive, and conversational search
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

This paper outlines the challenges and opportunities of research on conversational agents with children and young people across four countries, exploring the ways AI technologies can support children's well-being across social and cultural contexts.

Problem

• Designing conversational agents for youth wellbeing
• Addressing challenges in participatory design with children
• Exploring AI support across social cultural contexts

Innovation

• Participatory design with children
• Cross-cultural conversational agents
• AI for youth wellbeing support