Delegating Ourselves Away: Preserve Human Voice and Choice in Next-Generation Digital Systems

Agentic AI is reshaping the framing of equity and inclusion in information systems research. The editorial opens with an urgent call for a conversation about inclusion and equity in the age of agentic AI, given concerns that humans are increasingly removed from knowledge work in human-AI interactions. It then reflects on the digital systems research presented at HICSS over the past 60 years and explains how a new permanent research track has been established to focus on equitable and inclusive digital systems in society and institutions. The editorial outlines what agentic AI is changing, the equity and inclusion risks that follow, and the urgent research agenda this track is uniquely positioned to lead. It ends with a summary of the five papers published in this special issue, which advance our knowledge of equitable and inclusive digital systems from diverse perspectives, and calls for scholars and scientists in the research communities to pay attention to the profound socio-technical paradigm shift driven by the transition from traditional AI to generative AI and to agentic AI.