Shidler College of Business Information Technology Management professor Bo Sophia Xiao has been recognized with the 2025 Best Paper Award from the Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS), one of the premier peer-reviewed journals in the information systems field. The paper, coauthored with Shidler College of Business alumna Andrea Rivera, PhD ’26, and University of Hawai‘i alumnus Kaveh Abhari, PhD ’14, is titled "Responsible AI Design: The Authenticity, Control, Transparency Theory."

A framework for responsible AI

“Our paper introduces the Authenticity, Control and Transparency (ACT) Theory, which explains how AI systems can be designed to stay true to their intended purpose and ethical principles, remain subject to appropriate human control, and operate with sufficient transparency to support understanding, oversight and accountability,” Xiao said. “As AI increasingly influences decisions about people’s jobs, health, education and access to services, these design choices become increasingly important.”

Rather than focusing solely on improving AI algorithms, the ACT Theory shows that responsible AI also depends on what the system enables people to do and how the system itself is structured, monitored and maintained.

Research with real-world impact

The team’s research looks at how choices made when AI systems are designed can affect whether those systems behave responsibly, an increasingly important question as AI becomes part of everyday life and workplace decision-making.

According to Stanford University's 2026 AI Index, 88% of surveyed organizations used AI in at least one business function in 2025, while 70% reported using generative AI in at least one business function. A June 2026 Pew Research Center survey found that nearly half of U.S. adults now use AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot, with one in four reporting daily use.

Building responsibility into the design

“Responsible AI is not achieved simply by giving an AI system a checklist of desirable attributes or by improving its algorithms alone,” Xiao said. “Responsibility must be built into the system from the outset, through design decisions that shape what the AI can do, how it makes decisions, and how it can be understood, guided and held accountable.”
 

International recognition

The paper appears in the September/October 2025 issue of JAIS (Vol. 26, No. 5). The authors have also been invited to attend the JAIS Awards Breakfast in December, expected to be held in conjunction with the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS).