We invite the submission of interactive and creative demos from various disciplines, including human-computer interaction, computer science, engineering, speech technology, linguistics, psychology, cognitive sciences, sociology, and other cognate disciplines.
Submissions to the interactivity and creativity track are demo contributions aiming to tackle challenges and show progress in the field of Conversational User Interfaces.
We invite creative installations and artistic expressions that may not necessarily be as technical as traditional system demos. These contributions aim to enrich the conference’s interactivity by offering unique, thought-provoking ways for attendees to engage with conversational user interfaces, inspiring fresh perspectives and innovative reflections.
For the submission and review process, you should write an extended abstract that summarizes your demo. If accepted, we will invite you to present your work at CUI 2026, with your extended abstract being published in the conference proceedings.
Examples of previously successful demo submissions at CUI can be found in the ACM Digital Library.
Important Dates
| Deadline type | Date |
|---|---|
| Submission | Thu, March 19 2026 |
| Acceptance Notice | Thu, April 9 2026 |
| Camera-Ready in PCS | –––––––––––––––––––––– |
| eRights completed | Thu, May 7 2026 |
| TAPS processing completed | Thu, June 4 2026 |
The process
All demo papers will proceed through the following process. Please contact the Interactivity & Creativity Chairs if you have any questions.
1. Prepare your extended abstract and video
Submissions of extended abstracts for demos must be in English, in PDF format, anonymised using the CHI anonymization policy, and approximately 3,000 words (including figures, tables, proofs, appendixes, and any other content, excluding references and acknowledgments).
Your submission should include a detailed description of the system or creative installation, including its purpose, design, and the problem(s) it seeks to address. For creative installations, explain how they offer unique insights or perspectives relevant to the CUI community and discuss their novelty, artistic context, or experiential impact. Highlight your work’s relevance to the CUIs field and how it fosters reflection, innovation, or engagement. Additionally, provide a clear outline of your planned presentation, focusing on how it will deliver an engaging, interactive experience.
You must use the ACM LaTeX or Word templates to prepare your submission. We encourage the use of LaTeX and the official ACM template on Overleaf. LaTeX users must employ the following document class for submission: \documentclass[manuscript,screen,review,anonymous]{acmart}.
Word users must use the one-column submission template and should be prepared to submit to TAPS approximately one week earlier than the stated camera-ready deadline.
ACM’s CCS concepts and keywords are not required for submission and peer review but are required if your paper is accepted and published by the ACM.
You should also prepare a 2-minute (max) video demonstration of your interactivity and creativity demonstration.
2. Submit your extended abstract and video
You should submit your extended abstract and video to the conference submission system. You must include your title, abstract, author details, and extended abstract as a PDF and your short video. Your extended abstract and video must be anonymised, or it may be desk rejected. Please follow the SIGCHI Guide to an Accessible Submission to make your submission accessible for all users. Submitting your article to an ACM Publication acknowledges that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies.
3. Await reviews
Each submission will be reviewed by one track chair and one expert reviewer through a curated process. Following a curated selection process, successful submissions will be invited to present at CUI 2026. Creativity in delivery, feasibility, novelty, and ability to engage attendees in-person and online will be assessed in curating the program. We aim to deliver captivating demonstrations showcasing the diverse research arenas contributing to the conversational user interface research community. Sensitive, private and/or proprietary information should not be disclosed before publication. Business exposure is reserved for event sponsors only, so advertising materials should not be used in demonstrations.
4. Prepare your paper for publication
If your interactivity and creativity submission is accepted, you should de-anonymise it. You must include CCS concepts and keywords for publication. At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the conference. Otherwise, we cannot guarantee the publication of your paper. Accepted demo extended abstracts will be archived in the ACM Digital Library.
You will receive an email from ACM to assign the rights for your paper, following which you will receive an email from “The ACM Publishing System” (TAPS), which will handle the generation of the final version of your paper. Accepted papers will be produced from LaTeX or Word source files into a single column HTML document and a two-column PDF for publication. We recommend all authors read ACM’s guidance for TAPS Best Practice.
Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID to complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. Your paper will be published in the ACM CUI Proceedings in the ACM Digital Library. SIGCHI participates in the ACM Open Table of Contents (OpenTOC) service, which means papers will be freely available from this website for the first year after publication. Publications are Green Open Access by default but can be upgraded to Gold Open Access for a fee.
5. Present your work
Authors will be given the opportunity to present their demos at CUI 2026. The specific details of this presentation will be provided closer to the conference.
Additional submission details
Accessibility
Paper submissions are expected to follow the SIGCHI Guide to an Accessible Submission.
When preparing figures, make sure to rely not only on colour to mark information. Authors are expected to provide a text description for all figures. Tables, equations and quotes should be inserted as marked-up elements, not as images.
Anonymization
The review process is based on reviewing where the identities of both the authors and reviewers are kept hidden (but Interactivity & Creativity chairs know these details). Authors are expected to remove author and institutional identities from the title and header areas of the paper, as noted in the submission instructions (n.b., changing the text color of the author information is not sufficient). Make sure that no description or information that can easily reveal authors’ identities is included in the submission (e.g., too detailed descriptions of where user studies were conducted, where authors received IRB approvals, or figures that include faces of authors). Authors should also remove any information in the acknowledgements section that reveals authors or the institution (e.g., specific supporting grant information). Also, please make sure that identifying information does not appear in the document’s metadata (e.g., the ‘Authors’ field in your word processor’s ‘Save As’ dialog box).
Authors are expected to anonymize their identities in the body of the paper, but leave citations to their previous work unanonymized so that reviewers can ensure that all previous research has been taken into account by the authors. Authors are required to cite their own work in the third person, e.g., avoid “As described in our previous work [10], … ” and use instead “As described by Doe et al. [10], …” In cases where anonymization in the context of prior work is especially tricky, please contact the Papers chairs and ask for advice. Note that the use of any references marked “anonymous” is grounds for desk rejection.
In order to ensure the fairness of the reviewing process, CUI uses a review process where external reviewers do not know the identity of authors, and authors do not know the identity of external reviewers. While publication in public archives (e.g. arXiv) is becoming standard across many fields, authors should be aware that unconscious biases can affect the nature of reviews when identities are known. CUI does not discourage non-archival publication of work prior to or during the review process, but recognizes that complete anonymization becomes more difficult in that context. While reviewers should not actively seek information about author identity, complete anonymization is difficult and can be made more so by publication and promotion of work during the CUI review process.
If a submission contains any element (e.g., text or figures in the full paper document, artifacts, or supplementary materials) that violates the anonymization guidelines, it will be desk rejected. If there are exceptional circumstances, please contact the Program Chairs as soon as possible email: cui2026-interactivity@cui.acm.org
Policy on Use of ChatGPT or Similar Models for Paper Writing
Text, images or any material generated from foundation models (LLMs, VLMs etc.), such as ChatGPT, must be clearly marked where such tools are used for purposes beyond editing the author’s own text. Please carefully review the April 2023 ACM Policy on Authorship before you use these tools. The SIGCHI blog post describes approaches to acknowledging the use of such tools and we refer to it for guidance. Note that the LaTeX template will default to hiding the Acknowledgements section while in review mode – please make sure that any LLM disclosure is available in your submitted version for review. While we do not anticipate using tools on a large scale to detect LLM-generated text, we will investigate submissions brought to our attention and desk reject papers where LLM use is not clearly marked.
Furthermore, CUI follows the ACM Policy on Authorship. Please carefully review this policy. Any AI system, including Generative Models, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or DALL-E, do not satisfy the criteria for authorship of papers and, as such, also cannot be used as a citable source in papers published by ACM. Authors assume full responsibility for content, including checking for plagiarism and veracity of all text.
Contacts
If you have any questions, please contact the Interactivity & Creativity Chairs, Christine Murad and Jen Rodriguez, for support.