Unlocking Futures: Prioritizing AI Education for Youth

A national commitment to the future of our youth is taking shape. The Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth Executive Order signals a historic investment in preparing the next generation for a world transformed by AI. To truly fulfill this promise, we must ensure every young person has the chance to benefit. Right now, a crucial group of determined, resilient youth is often underestimated: those forging their own paths in adult education and workforce training programs.

For these opportunity youth, between the ages of 16-24, access to AI education isn’t just about a future job; it’s about unlocking new skills, achieving financial security, contributing to local economies, and gaining a foothold in evolving career pathways. By focusing on their employability skills, we can build bridges toward opportunity and innovation for everyone.

Meet the Youth Re-Engaging with Their Dreams

Across the United States, young adults aged 16-24 are actively pursuing their education through programs authorized by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). In addition to the over 130,000 young adults served by WIOA Title I youth programs, in recent years, these young adults have comprised roughly a quarter of the WIOA Title II participants as they work toward high school equivalencies, learning English, and gaining technical skills. These learners are not ‘off-track’; they are re-engaging with their goals, often while working and supporting families.

At the same time, they face a labor market that increasingly prefers experienced workers, making it harder for recent graduates and youth to secure stable, professional roles. This trend, highlighted in the Burning Glass Institute’s No Country for Young Grads report, makes the support and training offered in adult education more critical than ever. Adult education programs provide the foundational and durable skills that help youth bridge the experience gap and prove their capabilities to employers.

A New World of Opportunity Through AI

Artificial intelligence is creating a surprisingly broad range of careers, and many of them are not where you’d expect to find them. According to a recent report from Lightcast, over half of all jobs requiring AI skills are now in non-tech fields. The fastest growth is happening in areas like human resources, marketing, and finance, opening new doors for people with strong communication and organizational skills and foundational proficiency with AI-driven tools.

Furthermore, the conversation about AI isn’t limited to office work. The massive buildout of data centers and energy infrastructure to power AI technology has created a surge in demand for skilled trades. At least for the near future, there is a growing need for electricians, plumbers, and network administrators, hands-on, high-demand roles that are essential to keeping our digital world running.

Our Commitment to Empowering Every Learner

At World Education, a JSI initiative, our work is centered on ensuring all learners can access the tools and training they need to achieve their goals. We believe AI can be a powerful force for expanding opportunity when designed and deployed with intention.

• Supporting Educators: Through hands-on training like CampGPT, we equip dedicated educators with the skills to bring AI into their classrooms in a way that is supportive, ethical, and inspiring for their students.
• Guiding Programs: With resources like our AI Integration Framework, we help adult education programs and administrators thoughtfully integrate new technologies to better serve their learners’ needs.
• Creating Pathways: In all our work, including national projects like the Digital Resilience in the American Workforce (DRAW) initiative, we build bridges to opportunity by embedding AI literacy into core digital skills instruction, ensuring every learner is prepared for what’s next.

A Path Forward: Building Systems that Foster Success

To connect youth to these opportunities, we must build systems that value their potential and equip them with the right skills.

1. Focus on Durable Skills: Labor market experts caution against focusing too narrowly on specific tech skills like prompt engineering, which may quickly become obsolete. Instead, the emphasis should be on durable skills, such as critical thinking, collaboration, and adaptability, which prepare students to manage change throughout their careers. Adult education programs excel at cultivating these essential skills.
   💡 By embedding these durable skills in curricula, professional development, and technical assistance with practitioners and systems, World Education approaches durable skills development in a highly contextualized way. Teachers can find and remix free teaching and learning materials aligned to Workforce Preparation in SkillBlox.
2. Embed AI Literacy in Adult Foundational Education: AI-powered tools should be used to enrich learning in high school equivalency and English language classes. Imagine using AI to practice for a job interview or explore complex subjects in a personalized way. This makes learning dynamic and builds digital resilience for the future.
   💡At World Education, we’ve trained teachers to develop edtech routines, which can be explored in the interactive BRIDGES Digital Resilience Toolkit, with existing and emerging technologies as a way to help learners leverage repeated practice as develop digital literacy.
3. Expand Integrated Education and Training (IET): To fill the coming gaps in both knowledge work and the skilled trades, we must expand IET models. These programs allow learners to build foundational literacy and numeracy skills while simultaneously training for an in-demand occupation and credential, creating a direct and supportive path to a quality career.
   💡 World Education’s National College Transition Network has provided professional development and technical assistance to state administrators and local practitioners (instructors and career coaches) on the design and implementation of effective IET programs.

We make a powerful statement that the futures of youth matter when we include and design for them in adult and workforce development initiatives. Let’s energize today’s youth by building a bridge to new and emerging opportunities.