​The recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have been changing how we live, work, and dream, revolutionizing many industries through its versatile capabilities. Despite its many benefits, numerous challenges remain when integrating AI agents into our current workflows. No matter how advanced AI becomes, humans will remain in the loop at all times—focused more on goals, operating at higher levels of abstraction, and analyzing domain-specific circumstances. A major barrier to effective collaboration lies in the communication between humans and AI agents. In this talk, I will introduce my research, which takes a step toward addressing this gap using advanced interaction and visualization techniques to create harmony between humans and AI. I will share my perspective on the factors that influence human-AI communication, as well as showcase a range of example projects situated in various applications such as programming, information-seeking, and design.​

​Dr. Jian Zhao is an Associate Professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, where he directs the WVisdom research lab. His research lies in the intersection of Information Visualization, Human-Computer Interaction, Data Science, and Human-Centered AI. He is dedicated to developing advanced interaction and visualization techniques that promote the interplay between humans, machines, and data. Dr. Zhao received his Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, and joined the University of Waterloo in 2019 after working in the industry. Dr. Jian Zhao has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers at prestigious venues in InfoVis, HCI, and other fields, winning numerous recognitions including five Best Paper, eight Best Paper Honorable Mention, three Best Poster/Demo (Honorable Mention) awards. He is also the recipient of multiple accolades such as the Ontario Early Researcher Award, Outstanding Performance Award, Cheriton Faculty F ellowship, and NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement. He is a Senior Member of ACM and IEEE. He has trained five postdocs, over 30 PhD/Masters’ students, and numerous undergrads during his tenure in industry and academia. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE TVCG. He has also served on the program committees of many world-class conferences such as IEEE VIS and ACM CHI, and has taken critical roles in the organizing committees (e.g., Publication Chairs and Paper Chairs) of these venues. Additionally, he has experiences at various industry research labs such as Microsoft, IBM, and Adobe, and holds over 20 granted patents. His research has been covered in many media outlets including The Record, CBC News, and CityNews. More information can be found on his website​