This AI Literacy Review covers EY and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)’s report on baby boomers’ AI literacy across 16 countries, US Department of Labor’s AI in Registered Apprenticeship Innovation Portal and review of its AI literacy text message course, National Science Foundation’s AI-Ready Coordination Hubs, North America’s Building Trades Unions and Microsoft’s skilled trades AI literacy partnership, BBC’s AI literacies framework for public service media orgs, AI literacy in nursing, Google’s Catholic-school AI literacy initiative, UNICEF’s AI literacy competencies, Raspberry Pi Foundation’s AI impact report, Gallup/Walton Family Foundation survey on Gen Z and AI, Scottish Government’s guidance document for AI in schools, Lumina Foundation-Gallup State of Higher Education’s report, Stanford’s 2026 AI Index Report and review of the evidence base on AI in K-12, Boston school district promoting AI literacy, LEGO Education’s call for foundational AI literacy for every child, digital-media-AI literacy for science educators, Scenario-Based AI Literacy Scale for vocational learners, EUIA assessment scale for higher education, CAFE-AI e-learning framework, pedagogical strategies for using AI errors, and a Delphi study on AI literacy components for K-12 education.

General

In What Do Employers Mean by ‘AI Skills,’ Anyway? Elisa J. Sobo and David M. Goldberg of San Diego State discuss findings from a CSU systemwide survey of nearly 100,000 students showing that nearly 70% believe AI will be essential to their profession but only 37% feel curriculum offers adequate AI exposure, arguing that employers must articulate specific, role-aligned AI competency maps rather than vague calls for “AI skills.”

The BBC R&D Responsible Innovation Centre (RIC) in collaboration with the Bridging Responsible AI Divides Programme (BRAID) and We Are Open Co-op (WAO) publishes Supporting AI Literacies for Young Adults Aged 14-19: A value-based, practical framework for public service media organisations to examine the role they might pay in AI literacy for young adults. It analyzes 40 AI literacy frameworks and interviews with experts and shows how public service media can respond quickly to emerging issues as compared to educational institutions, and offers suggestions for evaluating AI literacies. 

In AI literacy tops learning priorities but training efforts lag CIO Dive reports on AI platform Docebo’s report of 2,000 employees showing that while AI literacy tops learning priorities for more than half of enterprise L&D leaders, 66% of employees don’t feel supported in their training and 85% say it doesn’t help them understand how to use AI effectively in their specific role.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance spotlights AI and workforce digital skills for National AI Literacy Day.

EY and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)’s report on baby boomers’ AI literacy titled Understanding Older Generations’ Adoption of AI finds that 24% of adults aged 60 to 85 across 16 countries said they were quite or very familiar with AI and 38% were actively learning about it through online resources.

Isabelle Roccia of IAPP reports from Brussels that despite the EU potentially loosening AI Act literacy obligations, companies across Europe continue to strengthen AI literacy programs with many companies reporting that over 80% of their workforces are already trained in basic AI awareness.

North America’s Building Trades Unions and Microsoft expand their partnership to launch no-cost AI literacy courses and industry-recognized credentials to improve accessibility for skilled craft professionals.

Government

NPR’s Huo Jingnan reports on reviews of the Department of Labor’s Make America AI-Ready course and finds that while educators praise its overall framework, they raise concerns about the tone, some of the advice, and corporate partnerships. Dan Levin of Straight Arrow News also finds consensus that while the text course is a useful starting point for the roughly 92 million Americans who have never used an AI tool, it’s very basic, non-adaptive regardless of experience level, and missing key topics. In The US Government Just Defined AI Literacy. Most Teachers Don’t Know It Happened. Jacob Carr notes that the Department of Labor’s workforce-readiness definition of AI literacy has been passed down through policy layers, and that AI literacy is being rolled out to educators who may not yet have it themselves.

The US Department of Labor launches an AI in Registered Apprenticeship Innovation Portal, a one-stop resource providing guidance and tools for integrating AI skills into Registered Apprenticeship programs through skill-building resources, industry-specific training modules for sectors including education, finance, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing, and three pathways for program integration.

TechRadar interviews Mike England of the US National Science Foundation about the TechAccess: AI-Ready America initiative, which will establish AI-Ready Coordination Hubs in every US state and territory to build AI literacy, proficiency, and fluency with particular emphasis on small businesses, local governments, and underserved communities.

At the CNBC Invest in America Forum, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says recent college grads should focus on being literate and conversant in AI to get ahead in the job market.

Healthcare

In From prompting to practice: Empowering faculty with AI and prompting tools Erin Schroeder and Jennifer Johnson explore how core nursing competencies align with prompt engineering practices and how AI literacy for nursing faculty is a foundational part of effective and responsible use in learning environments.

In AI Literacy, Moral Sensitivity, And Academic Integrity: A Mediation Model Of Ethical AI Use Among Nursing Students Tristan Jourdan C. Dela Cruz proposes a mediation model to explain how ethical AI use can be achieved and develops an Ethical Framework for AI Use in Nursing Education to translate general ethical principles into practical, discipline-specific guidelines.

Education

Google announces a new Educator Group for Catholic-school educators, founded in partnership with the National Catholic Educational Association, to deliver AI literacy training to 140,000 US educators serving 1.6 million students nationwide.

UNICEF’s Competencies and skills development focus areas include 21st-century skills, critical thinking, computational thinking, AI literacy, green skills, collaboration and socioemotional skills.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation releases a three-year impact report on Experience AI, its global AI literacy program created with Google DeepMind, showing more than 30,000 educators trained across 38 countries, with 93% of educators reporting increased AI knowledge and 87% of students reporting a better understanding of AI’s benefits and risks.

A new Gallup/Walton Family Foundation survey finds that 78% of Gen Z students say AI should have a place in the classroom and 51% report using it daily or weekly, while nearly three-quarters say their school has introduced rules for AI use, up from 51% a year ago.

The Lumina Foundation-Gallup State of Higher Education’s report AI in Higher Education: Widespread Use, Unclear Rules surveyed nearly 4,000 associate and bachelor’s degree students to find that 57% use AI daily or weekly for their schoolwork (13% never use it) even while 52-53% say their institution discourages or prohibits using AI in coursework and has classes that lack clear guidance about AI. 29% said they don’t receive enough AI instruction or training. 

The Scottish Government’s guidance document Scottish Guidelines and Guardrails for the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Schools has a section on AI literacy using the OECD definition and noting that children and young people think the term literacy is confusing in this context. It also notes that the growth of AI necessitates an attempt to integrate AI literacy appropriately across the school curriculum. Pat Yongpradit also spotted possibly the first job posting for an AI literacy teacher at a Scottish school, indicating a priority focus area for this school.

Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) publishes the 2026 Artificial Intelligence Index Report (aka AI Index 2026 Annual Report) with 15 top takeaways including that AI capability is accelerating, US hosts the most AI data centers (5,427), responsible AI is not keeping pace with capability, Gen AI reached 53% population adoption within 3 years, and formal education is lagging behind AI and many schools’ policies are unclear. 

In AI as Pre-Search Scaffolding Lori Looney at Connecticut College writes about a project with STEM faculty to help students use Gen. AI in the research process as they engage with library databases, developing AI literacy and critical assessment of AI recommendations and biases along the way.

Stanford’s AI Hub for Education’s report The Evidence Base on AI in K-12: A 2026 Review: The existing research on the impacts of AI on students and teachers finds no high-quality causal research on the development of student and teacher AI literacy, and that seeing the effects of AI on longer-term outcomes such as skill development or job market success will need multi-year longitudinal research. 

Boston becomes the first major US school district to ensure AI fluency for high school students, with Mayor Michelle Wu announcing AI literacy programming coming to high schools in September backed by a $1 million donation from tech entrepreneur Paul English. Teachers will receive advanced tech training and an AI-industry advisory board will give feedback and advice.

In Agency in the Age of AI: Building Foundational AI Literacy for Every Child Andrew Sliwinski of LEGO Education argues that AI education should focus on children understanding how AI works rather than just using it. He calls for national policy investment to elevate AI and computer science literacy to the same level as reading and numeracy, and notes that nearly half of computer science teachers still don’t feel confident teaching AI after training.

Christine Anne Royce and Valerie Bennett in the National Science Teaching Association article Beyond the Screen: How the Convergence of Digital, Media, and AI Literacies Sharpens Scientific Thinking argue that science teachers are uniquely positioned to lead the integration of digital, media, and AI literacies, proposing that these three skill areas should be woven together as a cognitive firewall against misinformation.

In Scenario-Based AI Literacy Scale (SAILS): Evidence for distinct instrumental and critical-reflective AI skills and their difference from traditional digital skills Christian Scheibenzuber et al. develop and validate an AI literacy scale tailored to vocational learners and show results from a sample of police officers.

In The EUIA scale for fostering learners’ AI competencies through assessment Mari Cruz Garcia Vallejo introduces the EUIA scale (Escala de Uso de la IA; Scale of AI Use), a six-level framework linking AI usage levels in assessment with ethical considerations to support the development of critical AI competencies among higher education learners.

In CAFE-AI: a synergistic approach to integrating pedagogy and technology for AI literacy and growth mindset I Kadek Suartama et al. explores the CAFE-AI model, an e-learning framework integrating pedagogy with AI through Content, Activity, Facilitation, and Evaluation in three paradigms: AI-directed, AI-supported, and AI-empowered.

In Advancing AI Literacy: A Faculty Course Refresh Institute at Indiana Wesleyan University in EDUCAUSE, Tasha Bleistein and Tiffany Snyder review how faculty were enabled to advance AI literacy with support and mentorship from leaders and designers and redesigned course activities with explicit AI literacy components.

In Examining the Effects of AI-Enhanced Teaching on Pre-Service Teachers’ Instructional Application Competence in Digital-Intelligent Literacy Shimin Li discusses changes in pre-service teachers’ digital application competence and practical AI application competence before and after participating in a course called AI-Enhanced Instructional Design Innovation and Application.

In When AI Gets It Wrong: A Pedagogical Approach, Safieh Moghaddam of the University of Toronto Scarborough describes six strategies for using AI errors as teachable moments (Spot the Error, Fact Check the Bot, Rewrite the Response, AI vs. Human Reasoning, Debate the Bot, and Cite Check the AI) to develop students’ critical thinking, research skills, and scholarly voice.

In AI literacy for K–12 education: an international Delphi study Jonas Hallström et al. identify key components of AI literacy in K–12 education within two main themes: foundational AI knowledge and critical perspectives.