The Imperative for AI Fluency

Why the AI Literacy Conversation is Already Missing the Point.

We’ve been asking the wrong question.

While discussions around AI in education often center on "literacy," what we urgently need is fluency. Literacy allows someone to recognize and interact on a basic level with AI. Fluency empowers individuals to use, critique, create, and ethically navigate (through your existing policies) AI’s complex landscape.

In a world where generative AI base models like ChatGPT, Claude 3.7, Cohere and Gemini are becoming as commonplace as calculators, merely knowing about AI isn't enough. Students, teachers, and school leaders must be equipped not just to interpret AI outputs—but to engage with them critically, iteratively, and creatively.

From Literacy to Fluency: Understanding the Shift

For the most part, AI literacy has focuses on foundational questions: What is AI? How does it function? What are the risks? Every now and again, you will find in certain jurisdictions a bit more depth going from the 1950s to today and explaining the evolution of AI or you will find a more robust explanation of Data. These are critical questions and content, but they merely scratch the surface of what AI requires.

AI fluency, however, emphasizes adaptability, understanding the rules of the game and deep engagement. It involves discerning when, how, and why to use AI —and when not to. According to Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index, fluency integrates cognitive, emotional, ethical, and creative capabilities, moving learners from passive understanding to active engagement. This underscores the need for comprehensive fluency and rigour across disciplines and across all literacies (fluency is not just for AI) for students.

Fluency is Essential in Today's World

AI fluency is rapidly becoming indispensable. In a 2025 McKinsey report, over 78% of respondents reported their organizations use AI in at least one business function. Education systems, leaders, and teachers preparing students for this reality must move beyond basic literacy to fluency to navigate the future of work but to participate meaningfully in both their civic and private lives.

From a civic and private lives perspective, AI fluency could include the ability to discern not only how to use tools but how to critically engage with the flood of information shaping opinions and actions. For instance, when scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, students must learn to ask: Who created this content? Whose interests does it serve? What perspective is being amplified, and why? Understanding the origins, intentions, and potential biases behind digital content is not optional—it is fundamental to participating thoughtfully in civic life. In an AI-driven media ecosystem, the ability to question sources, recognize manipulation, and resist passive consumption becomes as vital as traditional academic skills.

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs report, AI fluency will become one of the top skills required across industries by 2027, alongside analytical thinking and creative problem-solving. A Harvard Business Review article underscores this, noting that the most successful organizations in the coming decade will be those that actively develop AI fluency across all employee levels.

Bill Gates recently echoed this transformative potential, suggesting that AI advancements could render human roles significantly changed or even replaced within the next decade. In a March 2025 interview, Gates emphasized that AI could democratize access to high-quality education, making great tutoring universally available. However, Gates also highlighted the importance of human roles in guiding critical engagement and ethical navigation of AI.

The world’s leading research institutions—like Stanford, MIT, Oxford, and UCL—aren’t just studying AI; they are actively shaping how it should be integrated into education with responsibility, ethics, and purpose. Balance is key. Their work reinforces that AI integration must be human-centered, rigorously tested, and pedagogically sound—not rushed, fragmented, or left to chance.

Ethical Fluency as a Foundation

Fluency must encompass ethical and civic literacy. It’s critical for students and teachers to understand AI's societal implications—bias amplification, power dynamics, and decision-making influences. The Algorithmic Justice League and UNESCO’s 2021 recommendations emphasize that ethical fluency is as essential as technical expertise.

Every stakeholder should consistently question: Who built this AI system? Whom does it serve? What data trained it? These are fluency questions, not literacy ones.

Integrating AI with intentionality is essential. Carefully balancing human oversight with AI automation or usage creates optimal outcomes, avoiding pitfalls like cognitive atrophy or over-reliance. Unintentional or superficial integration transforms AI into a crutch rather than a capability amplifier, often decreasing human agency and innovation.

But this isn’t about discarding over a century of educational practice—it’s about taking stock.

We need to engage in honest, research-informed dialogue about what curricular foundations still hold, which skills and competencies remain essential, and where AI, digital, and data fluency must be thoughtfully scaffolded into the learning journey. It also means recognizing which legacy practices no longer serve our students and being willing to let them go. This is a time not for wholesale reinvention, but for strategic evolution.

Amplifying Learning, Not Replacing It

Intentional integration enables AI to amplify human capabilities. Research consistently shows that without clear integration strategies, AI adoption merely automates rather than enriches learning, failing to enhance deep cognitive and creative skills.

School leaders, teachers, policy experts, curriculum developers, and many more key employees in the educational ecosystem must develop fluency to intentionally embed AI (in whatever form) into their portfolios that will impact the scaffolding of educational activities and assessments in the classroom, which also must be done intentionally. As seen in this Digital Promise article, teachers and students want to understand not just how to use AI but also the critical guardrails—knowing when and why its usage is appropriate. This is crucial to making sure AI empowers rather than it being used as a shortcut that diminishes critical thinking and intellectual rigour.

As Sinead Bovell highlights in her recent substack article, the need for humans to retain and amplify strategic and critical thinking skills. AI use without intentional, critical engagement quickly becomes a crutch, potentially eroding essential cognitive skills. Conversely, when integrated with purpose and intention, AI significantly elevates human potential, becoming a powerful partner rather than a passive substitute.

The Imperative for Fluency

The Age of AI demands a paradigm shift from basic AI literacy to comprehensive fluency. This is a way to redefine our approach to education which I have written about over the last few articles. This shift is not merely technological—it is pedagogical, ethical, and deeply human. It is at its core about answering the question: what is the purpose of education? Fluency equips students, teachers, and all education stakeholders with the skills to navigate and shape the future thoughtfully, creatively, and responsibly. Our goal must not be to produce students who merely recognize AI but those who can wield it wisely to address real-world challenges.

This is the essence of fluency.