KIBA: AI Competences in the World of Work
Duration:
07/2026
—
12/2026
Total project duration:
6 Monate
AI is changing tasks, workflows and the way work is managed, photo: Pexels/Bertelli
The project
The project examines which AI competences employees, works councils and worker representatives need in order to use artificial intelligence at work in an informed way, assess it critically and help shape its deployment. It focuses on the requirements AI creates in work processes, the barriers to building the necessary competences, and the role worker representatives can play in providing orientation, supporting learning and shaping change. The aim is to provide a sound scientific basis for labour and interest policy debates on AI competence.
Our activities in the project
Within the project, a team from JOANNEUM RESEARCH POLICIES is responsible for reviewing the state of research, analysing strategies and international initiatives, conducting expert interviews and stakeholder workshops, and synthesising the results in an analytical report and a policy brief.
Research groups
Downloads
Contracting Authority
Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien (AK Wien)
Project partners
Details of the project
The use of AI in Austrian companies has expanded rapidly: according to Statistics Austria, 30 percent of companies with ten or more employees used AI in 2025, compared with 20 percent a year earlier. AI systems are changing tasks and workflows rather than entire occupations, and they increasingly allocate tasks, evaluate performance and prepare decisions. Since February 2025, Article 4 of the EU AI Act has also required providers and deployers of AI systems to take measures on the AI literacy of their staff. In practice, this obligation is often treated as a compliance task, while the perspective of employees and their representatives has received little systematic attention so far.
The project therefore understands AI competence not as mere operating skills but as a capacity to shape the use of AI on three levels: individually as informed use and critical assessment of AI outputs, organisationally as embedding AI in processes, responsibilities and human oversight, and at the societal and institutional level as the collective negotiation of rules and limits of AI use, for example through co-determination and transparency. AI competence thus depends on what people are able, allowed and enabled to do, and it is equally a question of access, participation and job quality.
Methodologically, the project combines a literature and document analysis, a comparative review of international initiatives, expert interviews and stakeholder workshops with representatives from worker organisations, education, research and practice. The results feed into an analytical report, a policy brief and a scientific publication. The project builds on previous work by JOANNEUM RESEARCH and the Chamber of Labour Vienna, including the concept design for an AI observatory of the Austrian labour market.
