I am a strong believer in the phase “seeing is believing”, and a recent global study by the
Digital Education Council supports this.
In the ‘AI in Higher Education Global Survey 2026’, involving 45,398 responses (including
27,284 from students and 18,114 from faculty—across 35 countries), ‘Only 29% of
students believe their instructors are well equipped to guide them on AI use.’
But what I found more interesting, was that 64% of faculty staff interviewed said that they
had received some form of AI literacy training.
This therefore raises a few immediate questions for me:
- Firstly, as trainers and developers, do we correctly understand what students are
expecting in terms of what guidance is given to them on their AI usage? How much
has the student voice been present in our decisions over what provision we offer
for staff? - Secondly, what AI capability checks are used in advance of and after training is
delivered to faculty staff, to ensure that objectives are achieved? We all know that
there’s training, and then there’s truly effective training. - And finally, does the fact that less than a third of students believed that their
instructors were “well equipped to guide them on AI use”, despite almost two
thirds of faculty staff interviewed having received training, raise a question of
confidence? Not just the confidence of staff to use AI with the students, but also
students’ awareness of professional development taking place to support staff
upskilling.
These statistics reinforce what I often speak with HE senior leaders about – that of the
need to carry out AI capability checks with your staff, to ensure that the training they are
receiving is at the appropriate level for them and personalised to recognise the area of
work that they are in and therefore their AI usage needs.
- This data also supports increasing the promotion of AI training and professional
development work that your institution is offering to staff, to not only improve
engagement on activities, but also show to the student population the efforts that you’re
putting in and hopefully build confidence for all. After all, seeing is believing!
Suggestions for boosting confidence:
- Support all AI training with capability checks, to ensure that individual level of need
is understood and used to match participants with the appropriate training. - Personalise training to match individual’s various roles and AI usage needs, thereby
making it relevant and immediately useful. - Ensure that training is task-based, enabling participants to build confidence
straight away in using AI in their daily tasks. - Don’t forget to promote the staff professional development work that you’re
delivering, not just to the workforce but also to the student population. This can
help support the development of a positive environment for AI – encouraging
conversations to be had and experiences shared. - Involve student voice in the design of faculty staff training, to understand what
their expectations are when it comes to the usage of AI within their studies.
About the author: Katie Steen is the co-founder of WorkSmart-AI, which specialises in supporting universities to adopt AI, through senior leader consultancy and task-based workforce training.
Katie and her co-founder Dave Weller have both worked within educational L&D and
communications for over twenty years, most recently as Digital Skills Leads at the
University of Exeter.
If you’re keen to find out more about what AI training and consulting packages they offer,
please visit their website: WorkSmart-AI.co.uk