{"type":"ScholarlyArticle","title":"Wavelength.AI: Extending the Collaborative Game Wavelength as a Testbed for Studying Shared Understanding in Human–Agent Collaboration","authors":[{"name":"Katelyn Morrison","slug":"katelyn-morrison","given":"Katelyn","family":"Morrison","affiliation":""},{"name":"Gabriel Enrique Gonzalez","slug":"gabriel-enrique-gonzalez","given":"Gabriel Enrique","family":"Gonzalez","affiliation":""},{"name":"Zahra Ashktorab","slug":"zahra-ashktorab","given":"Zahra","family":"Ashktorab","affiliation":""},{"name":"Matt Riemer","slug":"matt-riemer","given":"Matt","family":"Riemer","affiliation":""},{"name":"Andrew Anderson","slug":"andrew-anderson","given":"Andrew","family":"Anderson","affiliation":""},{"name":"Djallel Bouneffouf","slug":"djallel-bouneffouf","given":"Djallel","family":"Bouneffouf","affiliation":""},{"name":"Justin D. Weisz","slug":"justin-d-weisz","given":"Justin D.","family":"Weisz","affiliation":""}],"abstract":"AI's increasing role as a personal agent assisting knowledge workers in everyday tasks underscores the need to investigate how to help human–agent teams build a shared understanding. We extend the collaborative \"mind-reading\" game Wavelength to include an AI teammate, presenting the first demonstration of an LLM capable of playing this game. Based on our agent–agent play experiments, we developed Wavelength.AI, which implements two strategies to support shared understanding: an initial team grounding conversation and post-game reflective explanations. We interpret higher team scores as evidence for better shared understanding in a preliminary user study with 24 human–AI teams. Our findings reveal that Wavelength.AI can help researchers evaluate and design different strategies to shape human-agent teams' shared understanding. Human players can see if they are on the same wavelength with AI and view our demo video today at https://play-wavelength-ai.com.","doi":"10.24963/ijcai.2026/981","url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/981","pdf":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/0981.pdf","markdown":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/981.md","bibtex":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/bibtex/981","volume":{"slug":"2026","title":"Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence","short_title":"IJCAI 2026","url":"https://ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/","year":2026,"location":"Bremen, Germany","dates":"15-21 August 2026","editors":"Diego Calvanese","isbn":"978-1-956792-09-6","publisher":"International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Organization","doi_prefix":"10.24963/ijcai.2026"},"section":"Demo Track","track":"Demo Track","number":981,"pages":{"first":8466,"last":8470},"keywords":["AI: Agent-based and Multi-agent Systems","AI: Humans and AI"],"videos":[],"references":[],"license_note":"Copyright International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence."}