Affective computing has changed: the foundation model disruption

npj Artificial Intelligence 2026 Open access

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Authors: Björn Schuller, Adria Mallol-Ragolta, Alejandro Peña Almansa, Iosif Tsangko, Mostafa M. Amin, Anastasia Semertzidou, Lukas Christ, Shahin Amiriparian
DOI: 10.1038/s44387-025-00061-3
Cited by: 3
References: 33

Abstract

Abstract The dawn of Foundation Models has on the one hand revolutionised a wide range of research problems, and, on the other hand, democratised the access and use of AI-based tools by the general public. We even observe an incursion of these models into disciplines related to human psychology, such as the Affective Computing domain, suggesting their affective, emerging capabilities. In this work, we aim to raise awareness of the power of Foundation Models in the field of Affective Computing by synthetically generating and analysing multimodal affective data, focusing on vision, linguistics, and speech (acoustics). We also raise awareness of evaluation problems related to the use of Foundation Models in this research area.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Emotion and Mood Recognition Speech and dialogue systems Innovative Human-Technology Interaction

Publication details

Journal / source
npj Artificial Intelligence
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Volume
2
Issue
1
Publication date
31 January 2026
Language
EN