The Center for Autonomous and Interactive Systems (CAIS) is a Centralized Research Unit (CRU) established at UC Merced effective July 1st, 2010.

CAIS is a multidisciplinary research center promoting research in a variety of topics related to autonomy and interaction, including robotics, virtual characters, cognitive science, and human-computer interfaces.

CAIS is also part of CITRIS -- the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society.