Is AI proficiency stealing language literacy's thunder?

Every year on International Literacy Day (September 8), the world marks the importance of reading and writing – two fundamental human rights and the keys to global citizenship. But today, traditional concepts of literacy are evolving. It’s less about letters on a page and more about being plugged into technology.

What does this mean for societies? And, what does it mean for the youth?

AI is already disrupting the way we live and work, and the youth will inherit a future where almost every profession is influenced by the technology. It’s likely that students who collected their A-Level results last month will in 10 years be working jobs that don’t even exist yet.

In fact, the World Economic Forum’s Future Jobs Report 2025 forecasts that AI and data processing will create 11 million new roles by 2030 alone. Unsurprisingly, the report suggests technological skills will grow in importance faster than any others in the next five years, with AI at the top of the list.

Despite this data, nearly half of today’s students say they do not feel prepared for an AI-enabled workplace. Addressing this gap is a regional imperative for the Gulf.

Here, more than half of the population is under 30 – a significant demographic dividend if countries can fully prepare their youth for an AI-enabled future.

Fortunately, GCC governments have already recognised this and are ahead of the game. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have all committed to embedding AI into their national curricula with many schools now even teaching AI to four-year-olds.

Youth skilling programmes are also being conducted outside schools. Two region-wide examples are the One Million Prompters initiative and the earlier One Million Arab Coders programme, launched in 2017 to develop digital literacy among Arab youth. Far from being knee-jerk responses to new digital trends, these programmes are born from long-term national strategies. Ultimately, they signal that AI literacy is now viewed by leaders as a building block of national progress.

And it is not just policymakers and academia working to close the skills gap. The private sector, which relies entirely on quality talent pipelines, is helping to lead the effort.

For example, major businesses have joined non-profits like Education for Employment to teach young people to use AI for the workplace. Importantly, these efforts are designed to ensure equity in AI literacy so that everyone, regardless of their background, gender, or ability, has the chance to become fluent in this new language of opportunity.

Aside from government, academia, businesses and non-profits, there is one more group responsible for ensuring the next generation of workers is AI-literate – and that’s young people themselves.

Youth have the biggest stake in the future and have the most to gain by embracing AI. The Middle East region could add $232 billion to its gross domestic product by 2035 if AI is harnessed effectively. By 2050, that number could be significantly higher.

To capture this opportunity, young people must be supported to gain technical proficiency in areas like prompt engineering, programming, data and machine learning. But crucially, this should not come at the expense of basic human skills like critical thinking, ethical reasoning, creativity and empathy.

Together, AI literacy along with agility, resilience and humility represent an extremely competitive skillset. I believe this comprehensive approach to proficiency is vital to not only help young people stand out in the workplace of tomorrow, but also to build the economies of the future.

International Literacy Day reminds us that literacy has always been the gateway to opportunity. A century ago, teaching a child to read and write was one of the most powerful investments a society could make. In the future, society must continue to value the basic skills that allow humans to communicate with one another.

Because while AI fluency may determine who writes the code, the future will be written by those who can combine tech know-how with age-old human attributes – communicating, understanding and innovating.

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