AI Phenomenology for Understanding Human-AI Experiences Across Eras

ArXi:2603.09020v1 Announce Type: cross There is no 'ordinary' when it comes to AI. The human-AI experience is extraordinarily complex and specific to each person, yet dominant measures such as usability scales and engagement metrics flatten away nuance. We argue for AI phenomenology: a research stance that asks "How did it feel?" beyond the standard questions of "How well did it perform?" when interacting with AI systems. AI phenomenology acts as a paradigm for bidirectional human-AI alignment as it foregrounds users' first-person perceptions and interpretations of AI systems over time.