Helping citizens understand AI: Strengthening AI talent, skills, and literacy across Europe
How the EU is advancing AI expertise, workforce readiness, and responsible adoption
The European Commission is taking major steps to boost Europe’s AI talent, strengthen workforce skills, and improve AI literacy among citizens and organisations. As part of its broader approach to trustworthy and human-centric AI, the EU is working to train and attract more researchers and professionals while ensuring that people using AI systems have the knowledge needed to do so safely and responsibly.
A key milestone in this effort is Article 4 of the AI Act, which entered into application in February of 2025. This article requires providers and deployers of AI systems to ensure that their staff and anyone supporting them with AI systems possess a sufficient level of AI literacy, considering technical knowledge, experience, and the context in which the systems are used. National market surveillance authorities oversee compliance, supported by the Member States through the AI board.
To help organisations meet these requirements, the AI Office has published a detailed Q&A on AI literacy and launched a repository of AI literacy practices, which already showcases more than 40 initiatives from companies and the public sector. These practices were collected through two surveys, allowing the repository to support the ongoing learning and exchange of practices amongst its users.
These developments form part of the Commission’s wider effort to simplify and strengthen the EU digital rulebook, further reinforced by the Digital Omnibus proposal introduced in November 2025. Organisations interested in improving their AI literacy can explore the repository and read the accompanying summary report developed with the EU-funded ARISA project.
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