Human–AI collaboration in architectural design: Interaction, design process and controllability

This review article examines the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in architectural design, focusing on human–AI collaboration, interaction, design stages, input–output data exchange, and human controllability. Despite recent advances, existing reviews emphasize application domains, offering limited insight into how responsibility, decision-making, and controllability are distributed between designers and AI systems. Such insight is essential for developing decision support systems, enabling progression from early design stages toward construction documentation, and reducing the gap between computer-aided design and construction. To address this gap, a PRISMA-based review of 96 journal and conference papers was conducted. The findings identify four dominant collaboration modes, with Human-on-the-Loop being the most prevalent. AI applications remain concentrated in schematic design, with limited but emerging engagement in later phases. Image-based data dominates inputs and outputs despite limited precision and editability. The review shows that collaboration mode and information embedded in the design process shape human controllability over AI-generated outcomes.