TDAI welcomed Cleotilde (Coty) Gonzalez of Carnegie Mellon University on November 20, 2025, for a seminar exploring how humans and AI systems can work together more effectively. Her talk, Designing Complementary Intelligence: Cognitive Foundations for Human–AI Teaming, was part of TDAI’s Joint Human–AI Systems speaker series.

Gonzalez highlighted that the next phase of AI advancement will require systems that complement, rather than replace, human decision-making. She introduced the concept of Cognitive AI, an approach grounded in human cognitive processes such as learning, adaptation, and decision-making under uncertainty. In contrast to machine-centric optimization, Cognitive AI emphasizes how humans and AI can co-evolve and support each other in dynamic environments.

Her presentation outlined several foundations for effective human–AI teaming, including shared mental models, two-way goal communication, and human-guided system training. She emphasized that building AI systems around these principles can improve transparency, trust, and resilience—particularly in complex or unpredictable contexts where full automation is risky.

The seminar drew researchers, students, and practitioners interested in human factors, decision sciences, and applied AI. Attendees engaged with Gonzalez’s examples and discussed the implications of complementary intelligence for real-world system design across domains such as healthcare, engineering, and public sector decision-making.