The project aimed to contribute to increasing youth professionals' capacity to harness artificial intelligence's potential for enhancing the quality, attractiveness, and effectiveness of their work. To achieve this goal, the consortium set out to achieve three main specific objectives: SO1: Identify the competences youth workers need to integrate AI effectively and ethically into their practice; SO2: Equip at least 100 youth work professional with practical learning resources and tools that support the uptake of trustworthy AI solutions and strengthen young people’s AI literacy; SO3: Raise the awareness of at least 400 youth work professionals and young people on the benefits and limitations of adopting artificial intelligence. The AI4YouthWork project ultimately sought to contribute to the Erasmus+ Programme's priority on enhancing the digital transformation of youth work. It aimed to address the need for enhanced digital competencies within the sector, drive quality development and innovation, and equip youth workers to adopt AI in a critical, responsible and a practice-oriented way.
The rapid spread of AI systems has significantly reshaped the way in which young people access information, communicate, learn and participate, and has consequently affected the context in which youth workers operate. At the same time, these developments have created new opportunities to enhance creativity and improve efficiency within youth work practice. However, the available evidence, further confirmed by the project research, revealed clear disparities between youth professionals who were already digitally confident and receptive to AI, and those who felt alienated from or excluded by the subject. The sector has experienced widespread uncertainty regarding the implications of AI for both the role and the future of youth work, accompanied by concerns relating to the ethical use of AI, the reliability of AI-based tools, the risks posed to inclusion and participation, and the impact of AI-mediated environments on critical thinking and authentic communication with young people. Taken together, these factors underscored the need to strengthen youth workers’ understanding of AI and to bridge the gap between the pace of technological change and the sector’s actual preparedness to respond to it.