Emotional Intelligence in Conversational AI
Mar 19, 2026
🔒 Confidential
Co-authored a published systematic review examining how AI is being built to detect and respond to human emotions, and what we're getting wrong.
What I did
As part of my graduate program at Georgia Tech, my team conducted a systematic review of emerging techniques, evaluation methods, and challenges in emotionally intelligent conversational agents. We looked at three core questions. What techniques are being used to build emotional intelligence into chatbots? How are those capabilities being evaluated? And what challenges and limitations exist in the current literature?
I came to this research with a specific concern. These tools are reaching young people and marginalized communities and the protections are not keeping up with the technology.
Results
Our paper was officially published in 2026. My first publication. We honestly did not know if it would happen, so ending my grad program chapter on that note meant everything.
The research confirmed what I suspected. The tech is impressive. But the gaps around data privacy, ethics, and guardrails are real. We still have work to do.
check it out: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6377018
