By Wambui Kamau
A few years ago, being good with computers meant knowing how to use email, Microsoft word, Excel, Powerpoint , search the internet, and stay safe online. That is no longer enough. Now, more and more jobs and daily tasks involve working with artificial intelligence directly. Knowing how to use these tools well, and how to question them, has become a skill on its own. That skill is called AI literacy.
At NairoBits, we teach young people practical digital skills: coding, design, data, and general comfort with technology. AI literacy fits naturally into that work.
What is AI literacy?
To understand what AI literacy is, we first have to understand what AI is.
Formally, artificial intelligence (AI) is a subfield of computer science focused on engineering systems that can perform tasks traditionally requiring human cognition, operating through frameworks that model human thought or optimize rational action. In simple terms, it is technology that allows computers and machines to learn from data, make smart guesses, and improve over time without following strict, pre-written code.
When most people hear AI, they automatically think ChatGPT, and maybe Gemini. That is understandable, since those are the tools most people have actually used. But AI is a much wider field. It includes the recommendation systems that decide what shows up on your Instagram or TikTok feed, the facial recognition used at some airports and phones, the algorithms banks use to approve or deny loans, translation tools, voice assistants, and the systems schools are starting to use for grading and personalized learning. ChatGPT and Gemini are products built on AI. Knowing how to use them well is not the same as understanding AI as a whole.
AI literacy does not mean you need to know how to code or build an AI system. It is about having the knowledge and skills to understand AI, use it appropriately, evaluate what it produces, and think critically about how it affects people and society. Wikipedia’s current definition describes AI literacy as a set of competencies that enables people to critically evaluate AI technologies, communicate and collaborate effectively with AI, and use AI as a tool in everyday life and work.
There is still no single, universally agreed definition of AI literacy because the field is developing quickly. But the common thread is the ability to understand, use, evaluate, and ethically navigate AI rather than simply knowing how to operate an AI tool.
In simple terms, AI literacy means knowing:
- What AI can and cannot do
- When an AI tool is useful for a task, and when it is not
- How to evaluate and verify AI-generated information
- Why AI systems can produce errors or reflect bias
- How to use AI responsibly and think about its ethical implications
- How your data and information may be affected when using AI tools
None of this requires a technical background. It requires curiosity, critical thinking, and the habit of asking questions before accepting an AI-generated answer. Most people who use AI daily have only mastered the “how to use it” part. Understanding the rest is where AI literacy actually starts.
Why do we need AI literacy?
AI adoption has moved faster than education about it. DataCamp’s 2026 survey of more than 500 enterprise leaders in the US and UK found that 72 percent consider AI literacy important for day-to-day work, while 59 percent report an AI skills gap in their organizations. This points to a growing gap between how important AI skills have become and how prepared people are to use them effectively.
In Kenya, this is already happening around us. A Chegg.org survey found that 63 percent of Kenyan university and college students surveyed had used generative AI for their studies, the highest share among the 15 countries included in the survey. Secondary school students are doing the same thing, using AI to write compositions, answer comprehension questions, summarize set books, and generate assignments in seconds. The tools are already in learners’ hands. What is missing in many cases is proper guidance on how to use them well.
This gap matters because it pushes people toward two extremes. Some avoid AI tools entirely out of fear or distrust. Others use everything an AI tells them without checking it. Both approaches lead to problems, whether that means missing out on useful tools or spreading wrong information without realizing it. For students here, this is not a bonus skill. It affects how competitive you are in the job market and in freelance work.As AI changes how people work and businesses operate, young people who understand these tools critically will be better positioned to use them effectively and adapt to a changing digital economy. UNESCO has pointed out that gaps in AI education could deepen existing inequality if good AI training does not reach everyone equally.
Where AI literacy is missing, and what happens as a result
The gap between using AI and understanding shows up in real situations.
In 2023, a lawyer in the United States submitted a legal filing written with the help of ChatGPT. The tool had invented several court cases that did not exist, complete with fake names and citations. The lawyer had not checked the output before filing it in court, and faced sanctions as a result. This is a clear example of using AI without understanding one of its most basic limits, that it can produce confident, well-written answers that are simply false.
Bias is another area where the gap shows up. Amazon once developed an AI tool to help screen job applications, but discovered that it was downgrading resumes containing terms such as “women’s” because the historical hiring data used to train the system reflected a male-dominated workforce.The company scrapped the tool once this was discovered. This is what happens when AI systems are trusted without anyone asking what data trained them and whose patterns they might be repeating.
Closer to home, students who copy AI-generated answers directly into assignments without checking them run similar risks. Facts get invented, sources get misquoted, and set books get summarized inaccurately, yet the writing sounds confident enough that it gets accepted at face value. On a smaller scale, this is the same problem as the lawyer’s case. The tool sounded right. Nobody checked. There is also the privacy side. Many people type personal, financial, or academic information into AI chatbots without knowing how that data is stored, used, or shared. Without a basic understanding of how these tools handle data, users have no way to judge what is safe to share and what is not.
In each of these cases, the people involved knew how to use an AI tool. What they lacked was the second layer: the ability to question, verify, and understand what they were being given. That gap is exactly what AI literacy is meant to close.
At NairoBits, our mission is to use ICT to drive socio-economic transformation for youth in under-resourced communities. Our vision is a digitally empowered generation, equipped not only to participate in the digital economy, but to shape it.
Today, AI literacy is becoming an essential part of how we put that mission into practice. It means equipping young people to understand AI, question its outputs, use it responsibly, and turn it into a tool for learning, work, and opportunity.
If you believe in a digitally empowered generation, partner with us, fund our programs, or refer a young person who could benefit from these skills.
Sources
- Ng, D.T.K., Leung, J.K.L., Chu, S.K.W., and Qiao, M.S. (2021). “Conceptualizing AI Literacy: An Exploratory Review.” Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2021.100041
2. Long, D., and Magerko, B. (2020). “What is AI Literacy? Competencies and Design Considerations.” CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376727
3. DataCamp. “The State of Data & AI Literacy in 2026.” https://www.datacamp.com/blog/the-state-of-data-and-ai-literacy-in-2026-definitions-statistics-and-the-ai-skills-gap
4. The EastAfrican. “Kenyan students leading in AI use, survey says” (Chegg.org survey). https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/magazine/-kenyan-students-leading-in-ai-use-survey-says-4441882
6. Education News Kenya. “Education amid Tech: How students interact with AI is what matters.”
7. Reuters. “New York lawyers sanctioned for using fake ChatGPT cases in legal brief” (2023).
8. Reuters. “Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women” (2018).
