InquiryBits: Sharing AI Conversation Traces to Support Collaboration Within Trust Boundaries
For designers of collaborative AI tools, this work identifies trust boundaries as a key design parameter for sharing AI traces, though findings are preliminary and based on a single study.
InquiryBits shares minimal AI conversation summaries within configurable trust boundaries to support team collaboration. A study with 80 professionals found high willingness to share within bounded groups, with comfort dropping sharply as audience expands; trust boundaries matter more than detail level.
AI chat tools are shifting problem-solving and brainstorming conversations away from colleagues and into private AI interactions, reducing the shared awareness that supports team coordination. We introduce InquiryBits, a system that shares minimal summaries of AI conversations within configurable trust boundaries, separating AI-only analysis from human-visible sharing. In a study with 80 professionals, we find that people are broadly willing to share these traces to support collaboration and avoid duplicating work - but only within bounded groups. Comfort drops sharply as audience expands beyond close teams; the level of detail shared matters less than who can see it, with a preference for more detail over less within trusted groups. These findings suggest that trust boundaries, more than information granularity, may be the most impactful design parameter.