AI and the New Future of Work CFP | Spring 2026

Region: Global

Call for Proposals, Spring 2026

About the program

Collaboration between people is a central mechanism in how work gets done, but AI doesn't yet work as well for teams as it does for individuals. Understanding how humans and AI can work better together in group settings is a critical area of the AI frontier. In this year's New Future of Work Call for Proposals, we're looking to support research that advances this frontier. Some of the research challenges we expect scientists to propose include (but are not limited to):

• Systems that help a team with AI dramatically outperform an individual with AI: AI systems that enable teams of people to robustly and substantially outperform appropriate comparison conditions (e.g., individuals with AI and teams without AI) on important tasks.
• Collaboration "arenas" and world models: Developing simulation models that can help people train and test AI systems in collaborative settings.
• Envisioning a positive future of collaboration: Empirical and theoretical models of AI-empowered collaboration that have the potential to lead to positive outcomes for all stakeholders (individual participants, teams, organizations, society more broadly).
• Eliminating collaboration "drudgery": AI systems that reduce effort spent on aspects of teamwork that are empirically shown to be low value or aversive to participants (e.g., through prior literature, formative studies, or explicit measurement of perceived burden).
• Addressing the attention crisis in collaboration: AI systems that address communication overload at work by radically reducing low-value uses of attention in collaborative settings, allowing people to focus where their cognition and effort is most valuable.
• AI proactivity in collaborative settings: When and how should an AI proactively participate in a group conversation? How do we measure the cost of precision and recall errors in this context?
• Increasing fluidity in collaboration: How can people in an organization on-board (and step away from) a project more efficiently and effectively so that expertise can be brought to bear in new ways?
• Ensuring the work of a team benefits the team: Non-exploitative AI systems and corresponding incentive structures in which the value of any data created benefits the individuals and teams that created it.
• Leveraging behavioral science: AI systems and models that learn from well-defined negotiation scenarios, problem solving scenarios, conflict management scenarios and similar.
• New norms and etiquette of AI-empowered teams: Identifying successful norms and social frameworks for teams that have AI deeply embedded in their work.
• Strengthening core teamwork mechanisms: AI capabilities that can support and improve core teamwork mechanisms like grounding and common ground maintenance.
• Collaborative AI systems and approaches that focus on how AI can do different things than humans, not just replicate what humans do: AI's scalability, instantaneous ideation, externalized cognition and affordance of low-cost experimentation capabilities are all examples of underutilized but promising applications of AI rooted in its differences to humans, not its similarities.

Key Dates

• April 28, 2026: Proposal period opened
• May 25, 2026: Proposal period closed
• June 15, 2026: Recipients notified
• June 24, 2026: Recipients announced

Proposal requirements

We're planning to support research groups from universities around the world to work on challenges like those listed above. We are aiming for a lightweight application process and proposals should be no more than 500 words plus references. Please include budget information in your 500 words.

Funding levels will be approximately $50K-75K USD, so proposals that articulate how funding from Microsoft will be used to complement or attract additional funds are encouraged. Given the speed of change in the AI world, we're also hoping to see work that can make material impact quickly.

The review cycle will be quick, and writing a proposal will be as well! Proposals are limited to one page, and should clearly speak to:

1. The importance of the proposed research question.
2. The potential impact of the outcome.
3. The planned methodological approach.
4. The qualification of the PI(s).

Proposals must be submitted from individuals from academic institutions.

Important Dates:

• Proposals due: Monday, May 25th @ 11:59pm Pacific Time
• Decisions announced: Week of June 8th

Eligibility

To be eligible for this RFP, your institution and proposal must meet the following requirements:

• Institutions must have access to the knowledge, resources, and skills necessary to carry out the proposed research.

• Institutions must be either an accredited or otherwise degree-granting university with non-profit status, or a research organization with non-profit status.

• Proposals that are incomplete or request funds more than the maximum award will be excluded from the selection process.

• The proposal budget must reflect your university's policies toward receiving unrestricted gifts and should emphasize allocation of funds toward completing the research proposed.

• Visit New Future of Work

• Contact us

Conditions

The following conditions apply to submissions and, as applicable if selected, your participation in the program. By submitting a proposal, you agree to the following:

1. Microsoft may use your name and likeness to publicize your proposal (including proposal content) in connection with the AI and the New Future of Work in all media now known or later developed. For communication and community purposes participants' names and or email address will be visible to other participants on email invitations and in virtual meetings.
2. Microsoft has no obligation to maintain the confidentiality of any submitted proposals.
3. Proposals will not contain information that is considered proprietary, confidential, classified, restricted, or sensitive.
4. The submission review process is internal to Microsoft. No feedback will be given to submitters. Microsoft may, however, reach out to submitters for clarifications on submitted proposals.

Note: Microsoft will award these as unrestricted gifts. Our accompanying gift letter will indicate this and that addresses overhead issues in most cases. However, some schools still do take a small overhead out and we have no ability to influence that beyond the letter we provide, as well as no way of knowing which schools will do what. If your school will take overhead, you need to consider that when building out your plans and include it within the max $75k your proposal requests.