The IEAI Discusses Young Adults and Generative AI

The IEAI Discusses Young Adults and Generative AI

“AI-nxiety & AI-gency: Young Adults Navigating Generative AI”

The question is no longer whether we will use AI, but how we will engage with it and what agency we will have in that engagement.

Today’s young adults are experiencing a world increasingly embedded in generative AI, affecting how they learn, create and perceive themselves. With this accelerated permeation of AI in daily life, we should take pause to consider the need for approaches that build digital literacy, strengthen critical thinking and support psychological resilience.

To this end, we invited Dr. Jaimee Stuart, Senior Researcher and Team Lead at UNU Macau to be our speaker for the IEAI December 2025 Speaker Series. She spoke about the findings of three studies on young adults and generative AI which focused on motivation of use, decision making and perceived risk and opportunities. During her talk, Dr. Stuart emphasized that concerns and anxieties centered around AI aren’t novel but rather are different. She made a point to stress that AI anxiety is a legitimate concern.

This [phobia] is increasing because technology is more readily available, but also because of rapid advancement…it’s increasing at a rate that feels uncontrollable.

While youth are generally more likely to feel confident and engaged with new technology, it doesn’t necessarily mean they feel comfortable or are skilled in using them. Dr. Stuart spoke of the restricted understanding of youth and AI use that fails to capture how they make sense of it and apply it in everyday life. She also pointed to a lack of digital literacy taught in an educational setting.

Why do I care about young people? I care about them because they are the future.

Dr. Stuart proceeded to present results of her studies surveying young adults on how they feel about generative AI and why. She further presented results derived from investigating the risks and opportunities associated with the use of AI – also in correlation to frequency of use. She found that young adults tend to think in terms of context, rather than absolutes, when making ethical judgements on the use of AI. Dr. Stuart closed her talk citing a need to include youth in AI-related research, underscoring her opening theme that youth are our future.

We extend our appreciation to Dr. Stuart for sharing her valuable insights during the talk and for actively engaging with the IEAI community on this crucial and highly relevant issue. Additionally, we would like to thank all our event registrants for their participation and the TUM Think Tank for hosting. The recording of the event can be found here.