On 5th and 6th February 2026, members of the cAlibrate research team presented updates on their ongoing projects at the Etmaal 2026 conference, which took place in Papendal and brought together communication scholars from Dutch and Flemish universities.

PhD candidate Liv van Roozendaal presented a study analysing the types of trust that form between users and ChatGPT, as well as the effects that different uses of ChatGPT have on users’ trust. Based on in-depth interviews conducted with Dutch ChatGPT users, it appears that users can build quite different pictures of what ChatGPT is, what qualities and attributes it has, and what kind of relationship they have with it. The study also suggests that the kinds of trust users have in ChatGPT can shift, even within the same individual.

Junior Researcher Gabriele Bossi presented ongoing work into the effect individual factors have on the types of use people make of ChatGPT. The results were based off conversations with ChatGPT donated by Dutch participants within a pilot study conducted in August 2025. Findings show that communication styles and usage vary considerably from person to person, making it challenging to capture the intention behind messages using traditional automated methods.