From Buzzword to Baseline: The AI Literacy Imperative

Introduction

Over the last 2.5 weeks, I attended three highly engaging conferences across the United Arab Emirates, which all elevated the importance of AI governance through their distinct prisms of engagement. Dubai AI Festival focused on technology and AI strategy, the Culture Summit Abu Dhabi centered creativity, creators and humanity, and the Governance of Emerging Technologies Summit outlined considerations for effective and responsible deployment of AI technologies. While these three events were unique in their focus, one common thread was evident, and worth keeping an eye on: AI Literacy.

What is AI Literacy and why should you care about it?

According to Article 4 of the EU AI Act, “Providers and deployers of AI systems shall take measures to ensure, to their best extent, a sufficient level of AI literacy of their staff and other persons dealing with the operation and use of AI systems on their behalf, taking into account their technical knowledge, experience, education and training and the context the AI systems are to be used in, and considering the persons or groups of persons on whom the AI systems are to be used”. While the language is unsurprisingly broad, it is now a mandatory element of the EU AI Act, enforceable as of 2 Feb 2025, making it a compliance and strategic imperative for all companies using AI in some form. Specifically, AI Literacy isn’t just for companies developing AI technologies and platforms, but for any company adopting AI in some way, whether for scheduling, in-house versions of ChatGPT, or data visualization, etc. The question of compliance will impact everyone.

From an in-house perspective, having a proactive approach to your firm’s AI Literacy will set it, and your employees, up for success as the pace of AI digital transformation accelerates and regulations begin to be enforced. As an example of proactive enablement, a multinational group active in the cosmetics industry shared its efforts in upskilling staff with AI literacy and dashboard fluency and they work to embed GenAI into daily operations, scaling analytics maturity and reducing the cultural barriers to adoption.

While technological revolutions are not new, AI has certainly introduced a level of speed we have never seen before. Incorporating AI literacy now is the best way to futureproof your firm from evolving regulations and technology which can lead to potentially detrimental financial and reputational risk. And related topics to consider in the literacy and governance discourse include human oversight of agentic AI, copyright protections, user consent and privacy, accessibility and ethics.

While foundational legislation taming AI is still at framework development stages globally, and technologies continue to expand and integrate into all sectors and areas of life, one resounding sentiment from these public discourses is clear:

"AI won’t replace people, but people who know how to use AI will."

A further signal of just how crucial AI Literacy is in this era of digital transformation, the Emirati government announced, just 1 day before Governance of Emerging Technologies Summit, its plan to integrate AI Literacy into all levels of the education system next year. A very progressive and future-looking approach.

Partnership and collective action is paramount here

NOEMA GLOBAL - TAX & POLICY is working to develop a resource toolkit for clients outlining the fundamentals of AI and related compliance considerations, as well as a risk framework blueprint which will help firms set up their AI policies and future-proof, compliant operating environments. Stay tuned!