Design Guidance Towards Addressing Over-Reliance on AI in Sensemaking

Abstract

Sensemaking in collaborative work and learning is increasingly supported by GenAI systems, however, emerging evidence suggests that poorly designed GenAI systems tend to provide explicit instruction that groups passively follow, fostering over-reliance and eroding autonomous sensemaking. Group awareness tools (GATs) address this challenge through implicit guidance: rather than instructing groups on what to do, GATs externalize observable collaboration data through visualizations that reveal differences between group members to create cognitive conflict, which triggers autonomous elaboration and discussion, thereby implicitly guiding autonomous sensemaking emergence. Drawing on an initial literature search of existing GAT systems, this paper explores the design of GenAI-augmented GATs to support autonomous sensemaking in collaborative work and learning, presenting preliminary design principles for discussion.