This AI Literacy Review covers the European Commission and OECD’s AI Literacy Framework for primary and secondary education, UN’s launch of the Environment GPT chatbot, Pew Research’s Americans and AI 2026 report on chatbot use and skepticism, critical AI literacy for farming communities, Common Sense Media and Day of AI’s AI Literacy Toolkit for Families, Canada’s draft national AI strategy, an ACRL Framework–driven model for generative AI information literacy in academic libraries, Estonia’s AI Leap programme case study, Hong Kong’s AI Literacy Learning Framework for schools, Microsoft’s report on preparing students for the future of work, International Literacy Association’s piece on critical literacy starting in preschool, the Handbook of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence and Education, America’s first AI-themed high school, Wright State University’s rural Ohio and Kansas AI curriculum grant, San Diego Community College District’s free AI training courses, AI literacy in journalism schools, National Council of Teachers of English’s draft framework for AI in grades 6-12 ELA, a sock puppet AI literacy project for young students, AI literacy and grammar achievement, Human-Centric GenAI Orchestrator framework for business education, and more.
General
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) launches Environment GPT as its first public chatbot to make environmental science more accessible. It was trained on a library of over 220 UNEP and partner publications focused on key environmental topics.
Pew Research Center’s report Americans and AI 2026: Chatbots, Smart Devices and Views on Impact shows that more Americans are using AI chatbots (about half) but they are deeply skeptical of AI, ChatGPT is most used followed by Gemini, and adults under 50 are twice as likely to use ChatGPT. In terms of the gender gap in AI, women’s use of AI (47%) has largely caught up to men’s (50%) but women don’t use chatbots as regularly, and men are more confident using chatbots (22% vs. 15%). There are also ethnicity differences, with 7/10 Asian adults using AI tools compared to 46-49% for other groups.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) post Two forms of critical AI literacy and why they matter for farming communities by Chioma Chigozie-Okwum, Ameen Jauhar, and Eliot Jones-Garcia discusses how people using AI tools providing agricultural advice need to have the confidence and tools to evaluate the system and consider the data involved, assumptions made about soil and rainfall, and alignment with community practices. The authors argue for meaningful codesign of AI systems with farming communities by investment in critical AI literacy of farmers and stakeholders so they can become partners and advocates for their needs.
Common Sense Media and Day of AI offer the AI Literacy Toolkit for Families to support age-appropriate conversations between parents, caregivers, and children as they explore AI and its impact on the world.
Beatrix Meszaros scans UK marketing job descriptions and finds that the vast majority didn’t mention AI at all, raising questions about whether AI competency is considered important enough yet for employers. Meanwhile, Stuart Winter-Tear points to the problem of AI ‘translators’ who can understand business problems and help with AI adoption not fitting in well to traditional structures or interviewing practices, meaning that these people are having difficulty getting recruited by the organizations that need their skills.
Leon Furze posts about a web app that tests different AI models to see if a person is accurately in the AI system’s underlying weights or if it has incorrect information or hallucinates. It works better on unique names or famous people who are likely to have been part of AI training data. Try it out here: https://intheweights.com/
Government
Canada releases a draft national AI strategy titled “AI for All” outlining plans to scale up adoption and offer literacy training by 2031, with six pillars and goals of reaching 1 million entry-level post-secondary students with free AI literacy training.
Luxembourg celebrates a milestone of over 7,600 people completing the free online course Elements of AI developed by MinnaLearn and the University of Helsinki, which reaches the government’s goal of 1% of working-age people by 2030.
Libraries
Articulating generative AI information literacy competencies: An ACRL Framework–driven model for academic libraries by Ladislava Khailova, Melissa Netzband Wathen, and Melissa Jones draws on reviews of Generative AI literacy scholarship and creates an ACRL-aligned competency model as a foundation for AI literacy initiatives, and how early implementation of the model is going at Georgetown University.
Education
The European Commission and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) launch their AILit Framework with four domains (engage, create, manage, shape) and 19 competences informed by research and a stakeholder engagement process with teachers, designers, policymakers, and other professionals. The 64-page document Empowering Learners for the Age of AI: An AI Literacy Framework for Primary and Secondary Education is released Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) with graphics and examples supporting the framework, and there is an interactive version as well.
The Estonian AI Leap programme which offers AI literacy education in schools offers a case study of how to transform teaching practices by empowering teachers and changing students’ habits to prevent lazy AI use through tools such as study circles, a centralized resource platform, and premium AI tool access and a Socratic AI chatbot.
The Education Bureau of Hong Kong publishes an AI Literacy Learning Framework for Primary and Secondary Schools with examples of how to incorporate AI into learning activities in different subjects
Microsoft’s report Preparing Students for the Future of Work: A guide to evolving skills and industries in the AI era points to employer demands for AI literacy skills and changes in entry-level role expectations, AI as a partner, context engineering, and the weight of college degrees. It includes AI readiness examples in areas Microsoft has experience or products in such as cybersecurity, education, finance, and research.
The International Literacy Association’s article In the Age of AI, Critical Literacy Starts in Preschool by Catherine Gibbons discusses how reading is not just a skill but involves meaning-making, communication, and decision-making, and how people need to be able to read with intention and critically engage when they are reading AI-generated content.
The Handbook of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence and Education published by Edward Elgar Publishing and edited by Wayne Holmes features 66 authors from 18 countries discussing AI and education topics from a critical studies perspective.
Jessica Grose’s guest essay America’s First A.I. High School Is Great. But Not Because of A.I. in the New York Times reviews the approach of a high school marketing itself as the US’s first AI-themed educational institution, Seckinger High School in Georgia, as well as its feeder schools, and the differences between the marketing and the reality when it comes to how much AI components are involved in the curriculum.
José Antonio Bowen uses AI to generate a Google spreadsheet list of higher education AI literacy and AI 101 programs and finds that across 90 programs, the most common is an optional non-credit, self-paced online module (3-4 hours tpyically), and that required programs tend to be outside the US in Asian countries like Korea, Japan, and China.
In A new project aims to bring more AI literacy to rural Ohio Kendall Crawford details Wright State University’s $2.5 million grant from the US Department of Education to develop an AI curriculum for teachers at rural Ohio and Kansas high schools and colleges, to help ensure rural students are not left behind their urban counterparts.
The San Diego Community College District launches free, self-paced online AI training courses for staff and students with a digital badge or micro-credential for those who complete the five modules covering AI basics, ethics, and responsible use.
In The Conversation piece Canada’s AI strategy and universities: Beyond literacy, students need to be fluent with AI Ali Shiri from the University of Alberta argues for a shift from AI literacy to AI fluency to better prepare graduates for a world with AI agents, concerns about data and AI sovereignty, and employers who want AI-ready graduates. Shiri notes that some of the popular AI literacy frameworks do not look at the application and integration of AI fluency through subject expertise or workforce readiness lenses.
The University of Florida’s director of the AI2 Center, Hans van Oostrom, is interviewed for Times Higher Education’s Campus Talks podcast on What Does ‘AI Across the Curriculum’ Look Like in Practice? He also writes an article AI literacy is everyone’s responsibility for Times Higher Education.
Patrice Seuwou from the University of Northampton writes Three levels of AI proficiency for university educators calling on academics to move past the basic level of AI proficiency to explore teaching approaches and interactive learning activities, and then build reusable systems for routine tasks.
Government Technology’s article AI Use in Schools Growing, but District Policies Haven’t Caught Up by Robbie Sequeira explores how school districts are playing catch-up on AI, with a Center for Democracy & Technology survey showing only about half of teachers and students receiving training or info on AI from their school, and how new legislation will require an AI coordinator in school systems, professional development on AI for teachers, and AI literacy for K-12 students.
Government Technology’s article AI in J-School: How Journalism Classes Are Adapting by Abby Sourwine looks at AI in public journalism schools, what industry people say they want in graduates in terms of AI literacy, how AI knowledge will help journalists keep the tech industry accountable, and what AI integration looks like in assignments.
The Thomas Edison State University podcast episode What Does It Actually Mean to Be AI Literate? TESU Has an Answer covers the importance of the undergraduate required class SOS-1100, Fact, Fiction or Fake? Information Literacy Today in the age of Generative AI and how it is part of a three-tiered framework for AI competency across the institution.
Need for early, institution-wide AI literacy education highlighted in study by Auburn University discusses the findings from an investigation into students’ AI literacy levels using the Generative AI Literacy Assessment Test (GLAT) that show incoming students have a very limited understanding of how AI tools work and how to critically evaluate them, meaning there is a need for broad-based education to all students on ethical reasoning, metacognitive awareness, and evaluation of AI.
Amy Allen and David Hicks in Faculty must embrace the ‘messy middle’ to guide AI proficiency in Times Higher Education make a case for university educators engaging with tech enough to be able to evaluate it rather than just reacting or leaving it to tech companies’ training sessions and professional development options which have commercial biases.
The National Council of Teachers of English has published a draft framework with principles and examples relating to how to consider AI use in the context of grades 6-12 English language arts classes and enhance students’ critical thinking and writing skills.
In Can a sock puppet teach an 8-year-old how an AI chatbot actually works? Mai Vu shares how a Super STEM summer camp in Colorado offered a hands-on AI literacy project to help students in grades 3-5 explore how AI works through the use of sock puppets and ChatterPix.
Grammar Achievement in AI-Supported EFL Learning: Academic Engagement, AI Literacy, and Task-Assessment Alignment by Wang Yadan et al. takes a targeted conceptual narrative approach to see how AI literacy shapes grammar achievement in AI-supported learning environments through a literature review on the topic.
The pre-print article Knowing Is Not Enough: Perceived Generative AI Literacy, Support Needs, and Critical Engagement Among Higher Education Students by Marko Radovan and Danijela Makovec Radovan looks at a survey study of 449 students from Slovenian education and arts faculties to find that perceive GenAI literacy was positively associated with the frequency, breadth, and diversity of learning-related Gen AI use, and that age was the strongest predictor of having a critical and responsible orientation toward Gen AI.
The pre-print article Human-Centric Generative AI Literacy in Business Education Curriculum by Joel Reynolds proposes a Human-Centric GenAI Orchestrator as a curricular framework organizing AI literacy into five dimensions (foundational GenAI and data literacy; critical inquiry and analytical judgment; ethical stewardship and responsible AI; human-centric innovation and creativity; and strategic business and domain expertise) and suggests augmenting existing courses rather than adding a standalone AI literacy course.
The Balance podcast episode Teaching AI Literacy in Any Class features Dr. Catlin Tucker interviewing Matt Miller about his new book, AI Literacy in Any Class, and preparing students to think critically about AI and evaluation information.
