AI has a major impact on education, work, and society at large. Understanding students’ perceptions of AI is increasingly important as universities train graduates for an AI-reliant future. Based on the responses of 1,205 university students from numerous countries, this data narrative investigates student attitudes toward AI, AI literacy, anxiety, career motivation, and future workforce skills.
AI has become increasingly important to students’ education as this survey indicates. The most significant aspect of this is that most respondents (average score 4.28 out of 5), believe AI will impact how people live, so most students feel they need to learn about AI and learning AI will provide value for them.
Source: AI Literacy Questionnaire Dataset (n = 1,205 students)
AI literacy varies across academic disciplines and demographic groups. Students enrolled in Information Technology programs reported the highest literacy scores across both male and female groups. In contrast, students studying language and education-related disciplines reported lower levels of AI literacy.
These findings suggest that exposure to technology-focused learning environments plays an important role in developing AI knowledge and confidence.
Source: AI Literacy Questionnaire Dataset (n = 1,205 students)
The relationship is weak (r = -0.13), indicating that students with higher levels of AI literacy correlate slightly with lower levels of anxiety related to AI. However, the correlation is weak and, therefore, we do not believe knowledge alone can eliminate concerns surrounding the broader social and economic implications of AI.
Source: AI Literacy Questionnaire Dataset (n = 1,205 students)
A moderate positive correlation was shown in between AI readiness and motivation (r = 0.58). Of all the relationships measured, the strongest one was between career motivation for students who feel they are ready to make use of AI at work and students with higher motivations to pursue an AI-related career.
Source: AI Literacy Questionnaire Dataset (n = 1,205 students)
The workforce of the future will require knowledge of AI beyond just the technical aspect. The World Economic Forum believes future success will depend on a combination of technical competencies and humans’ soft skills such as creativity, perseverance, and continuous improvement. This chart was developed using the illustrative ranking based on Future of Jobs Report 2025.
Source: Word Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025
The findings suggest that students are aware that artificial intelligence (AI) has the ability to change their lives and are typically supportive of learning about it. Students also have different levels of understanding (literacy) about AI based on their studies. Knowledge (literacy) will assist in reducing fear related to AI; however, having knowledge of technical skills needed in the AI workforce appears to play a larger role in influencing student career plans after graduation. As AI continues to change the way we live, universities have an obligation to help students develop both technical AI capabilities and the human skills required to work alongside intelligent systems.
Skalka, J., Przybyła-Kasperek, M., Smyrnova-Trybulska, E., Klimeš, C., Farana, R., Dagienė, V., & Dolgopolovas, V. (2025). AI literacy questionnaire data (Version 2) [Data set]. Figshare. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29488523.v2
World Economic Forum. (2025). Future of jobs report 2025. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025