Here’s a stat to sit with: a 2025 report by the EU’s Joint Research Centre found that only 17% of SMEs had implemented any form of AI training, compared to over 60% of large companies. That gap isn’t just wide, it’s worrying.
Imagine this: It’s Monday morning. Your marketing team is buzzing about a new AI tool that’s going to automate your content pipeline, streamline segmentation, maybe even help with compliance language. You nod along. Sounds great.
Then someone asks, “How does it work?”
Silence. Shrugs. Nervous chuckles.
Welcome to the AI literacy gap.
The EU isn’t just talking about AI literacy, it’s regulating it. The new EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) requires that anyone building or using AI systems must ensure their people have a “sufficient level of AI literacy.”
This isn’t just for data scientists. It applies to marketers using AI for copy, analytics, email flows, or campaign optimisation. It applies to the life sciences field, where AI tools are now being used for clinical content generation, market access strategy, and field rep enablement.
And here’s the kicker: this obligation applies to all organisations, regardless of the risk level of the AI being used.
Larger enterprises are embedding AI training into compliance checklists, building role-specific learning programs, and documenting employee progress, just as they did for GDPR and cybersecurity.
But smaller teams, especially in marketing and life sciences, are failing to keep up.
In one recent case, a global life sciences company issued a full ban on generative AI use until an internal policy could be finalised. On paper, compliance looked airtight. In reality, marketers across regions were quietly using ChatGPT and similar tools through personal accounts. Why? To save time, accelerate research, and draft regulatory content faster. No approvals. No audit trail. No oversight.
This is what I like to call “Secret Cyborgs” - humans using AI in secret, increasing both productivity and risk.
And it’s more common than leadership realises.
It’s not just a matter of resources. It’s a mindset shift. AI isn’t just another tool, it’s a system that rewires how decisions get made, how messaging is shaped, and how trust is built (or broken).
For life sciences marketers, the stakes are especially high. Bias, hallucinated claims, and training data gaps aren’t just brand risks, they’re regulatory violations. And for marketers in any sector, generative tools can create speed and scale, but without literacy, they can also create legal exposure and erosion of consumer trust.
So how do we close the gap, before regulators or customers do it for us?
Based on guidance from regulatory experts, legal advisors, and digital learning best practices, including insights from RPC Legal’s “Six Steps to AI Literacy” framework, these steps provide a practical roadmap for organisations aiming to meet the EU AI Act’s literacy requirements. We’ve adapted them with a Strivenn twist to fit the realities of fast-moving teams.
Step |
What to do |
Key Tip |
|
1. Know Your AI |
Audit your AI stack, from obvious apps to AI baked into CRMs, content tools, and analytics. |
You can't train people on what you can't see. |
|
2. Map the Impact |
Identify who uses or is affected by AI, especially in marketing, medical, and customer-facing roles. |
AI touches more people than you think. |
|
3. Define "Literacy" by Role |
Set role-specific literacy expectations: awareness for most, deeper training for high-risk use. |
One-size-fits-all training won’t cut it. |
|
4. Deliver the Right Learning |
Use formats that work: microlearning, guided simulations, workshops, even AI-powered trainers. |
Compliance doesn't have to be boring. |
|
5. Track and Prove It |
Document what’s been taught, to whom, and why it fits the use-case. |
If regulators ask, you need receipts. |
|
6. Make It Continuous |
Update literacy as tools evolve, roles shift, and laws tighten. |
AI moves fast. Your training has to keep up. |
Closing the AI literacy gap isn’t just about legal coverage, it’s about cultural readiness. It requires marketers to rethink how they vet tools, evaluate claims, and craft messages in a hybrid human+machine workflow.
AI is changing how work happens. But without literacy, it won’t be a superpower, it’ll be a liability, especially for marketers in high-stakes fields like healthcare, biotech, and pharma. These teams aren’t just writing taglines, they’re translating science, influencing health behaviors, and shaping public understanding.
Now is the time to ask: what do we really know about the AI we’re using? And what happens if we don’t?