Refers to awareness and management of one's own thinking and learning processes. This is often described as “thinking about thinking.” It includes planning how to approach a task, monitoring your understanding and progress, recognizing uncertainty or gaps in knowledge, evaluating results, and changing strategies when necessary.

Metacognition is particularly important when using AI because users need to consider what they understand themselves, where they need assistance, whether an AI response makes sense, and when additional information or verification is needed.