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. At the same time, the EU AI Act has required providers and deployers of AI systems since February 2025 to take measures on the AI literacy of their staff. What this competence should encompass from the perspective of employees, however, has hardly been addressed so far.
Able, allowed and enabled
KIBA understands AI competence as the capacity to shape technology on three levels. Employees need to be able to use AI systems in an informed way and to critically assess their outputs. Companies need to establish clear responsibilities and effective human oversight. At the societal level, the rules and limits of AI use have to be negotiated collectively, for example through co-determination and transparency. To make these requirements tangible, the project team analyses research, strategies and international initiatives and conducts expert interviews with representatives from worker organisations, research, education and practice. Two stakeholder workshops provide space to discuss and refine the interim results.
The project runs until December 2026. The results will be presented in an analytical report and a policy brief and are intended to give worker representatives and policymakers a sound basis for anchoring AI competence as a matter of participation, job quality and co-determination.
