Building on two successful editions (Salerno 2024, Cagliari 2025), this year focuses on the responsible, ethical, inclusive, and equitable use of AI in educational contexts. If AI makes learning easier, are we still learning or merely optimizing task completion? AI systems can support reasoning, creativity, and decision-making. Yet they can also obscure understanding, reinforce bias, and reduce cognitive effort. WAILS 2026 is grounded in a simple premise:

AI should not replace thinking, it should make thinking more visible, critical, and meaningful.

Topics
WAILS 2026 welcomes contributions from a wide range of disciplines, including computer science, education, cognitive science, psychology, sociology, ethics, economics, and human-computer interaction. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Responsible AI in Education
• Transparency, explainability, and accountability in AI-powered learning systems
• Communicating AI limitations (e.g., hallucinations, uncertainty) to users
• Large language models in educational contexts
• Privacy, data protection, and governance of student data
• Learning analytics and educational data mining
• Ethical frameworks and governance for AI in education
• AI policy and regulation in educational institutions
• Designing systems that make risks visible, interpretable, and actionable

Equity, Fairness & Inclusion
• Bias detection, measurement, and mitigation in educational AI
• Inclusive and accessible AI-supported learning environments
• Addressing inequalities in access, representation, and AI literacy
• AI for supporting diverse and underserved learners
• Sociological and cultural factors in AI adoption across educational contexts
• Digital divide and unequal access to AI-powered tools
• Gender, race, and disability bias in AI-powered learning systems
• Community-based and participatory approaches to equitable AI design

Human-Centered AI
• Learner agency vs. over-reliance and automation bias
• Cognitive impacts of AI use (e.g., shallow learning, reduced effort, illusion of understanding)
• Intelligent tutoring systems and conversational agents
• Evolving teacher roles: augmentation, adaptation, or deskilling
• Designing for reflection, reasoning, and metacognition
• Cognitive science and psychological dimensions of AI-supported learning
• Student wellbeing and mental health in AI-mediated learning
• Adaptive and personalized learning environments

Serious Games & Inclusive Learning
• AI-enhanced serious games for education and training
• Game-based approaches for AI literacy and critical thinking
• Serious games for social-emotional learning and inclusion
• Participatory design of serious games with marginalized communities
• Narrative and storytelling in AI-driven educational games
• Emotional and motivational dimensions of game-based learning
• AI-generated content in serious games: opportunities and risks
• Accessibility and universal design in serious games
• Transfer of learning from game-based to real-world contexts

Interdisciplinary & Social Perspectives
• Sociological and psychological dimensions of AI in education
• Cognitive science approaches to AI-supported learning
• Economic and policy implications of AI adoption in education
• Cultural and contextual factors in AI-enhanced learning environments
• AI and the future of educational institutions
• Philosophical and ethical dimensions of AI in education
• Cross-cultural perspectives on AI-supported learning
• AI and educational equity from a policy perspective

Teaching AI
• Teaching AI literacy across formal and informal learning contexts
• Curriculum design for responsible AI education
• Teaching AI concepts across disciplines and age groups
• Pedagogical approaches to explaining AI limitations and risks
• Teacher training and professional development for AI-integrated classrooms
• Assessing student understanding of AI systems and their societal impact
• Evaluating the effectiveness of AI education programs and interventions
• Student and teacher perceptions of AI: trust, fear, and agency