Skills · literacy, measurement and certification
The country already uses AI.
Nobody has measured
whether it knows how.
Almost four in ten Portuguese people used artificial intelligence tools in the last three months. At the same time, three in four companies that have not adopted AI say the reason is a lack of knowledge. Both facts are true at once — and that contradiction is exactly what national skills policy has to resolve.
01 · The INE diagnosis
Adoption without
competence is risk,
not productivity.
—
Who in Portugal already uses AI
—
Why those who do not use it, do not
People who did not use AI tools in the three months before the interview.
The barrier, on the company side
Business adoption by company size
The inequality is not in access to the technology — it is in access to people who know how to deploy it.
What these numbers say together
Individual adoption is high and uneven by age: 81.5% among students, 76.5% among 16 to 24-year-olds, 52.3% among 35 to 44-year-olds. Business adoption is low and uneven by size: 49.1% in companies with 250 or more employees, 9.4% in those with 10 to 49.
In other words: people entering the labour market already bring the skill, but find companies that do not know how to use it. And among the companies left outside, 74.4% cite a lack of knowledge and 57.3% a lack of clarity about the legal consequences. This is not a training problem — it is a problem of organisational literacy and legal certainty at the same time.
02 · The obligation almost nobody knows about
Article 4:
AI literacy is
already enforceable.
Since 2 February 2025, the AI Act has required providers and deployers of AI systems to ensure a sufficient level of AI literacy among their staff and anyone operating those systems on their behalf.
It is not a recommendation, it has no future deadline, and it does not depend on the system’s risk tier. It is the most cross-cutting obligation in the whole regulation — and the least complied with in Portugal, because almost nobody knows it exists.
There is no official European AI literacy certificate. There is an obligation of result and the need to demonstrate it. That is the gap the AI Literacy Passport fills: a national, verifiable standard an organisation can present as evidence of diligence.
03 · The instrument
CENSUS IA
The first national survey dedicated to artificial intelligence skills. INE measures whether people use AI. The AI CENSUS measures whether they know how to use it, whether the organisation they work in governs it, and whether anyone inside it is accountable for that.
01
Individual literacy
Real competence in use, beyond familiarity. Telling a plausible answer from a correct one.
02
Internal governance
Is there an inventory of the AI systems in use? Is there a written policy? Is anyone accountable?
03
Regulatory awareness
Does the organisation know what risk tier it operates in and which AI Act deadlines apply to it?
04
Technical capacity
Internal deployment and oversight skills, against total dependence on suppliers.
05
Actual adoption
Where AI is genuinely changing processes, against where it is undeclared individual experimentation.
Annual, free, with results published by region, sector and company size. The historical series is the asset: the value of a census is not in the first edition, it is in the third.
04 · The skills strategy
Three levels,
three audiences.
Finland trained 1% of its population through Elements of AI and turned that into national positioning. Portugal has a better starting point on adoption — and no equivalent instrument.
Level 1
AI Literacy Passport
Individual certification, free and at mass scale, aligned with the Article 4 duty. Short, in European Portuguese, using examples from the national context — and issuing a record the person presents and the organisation files as evidence of diligence.
For the whole working population · goal: mass adoption, public recognition thereafter
Level 2
Algorithmic governance for decision-makers
Training for managers, technical staff and public decision-makers on what the AI Act requires, how a system is classified, how an inventory is built and what effective human oversight actually means. In partnership with universities and business associations.
For middle and senior management · private sector and public administration
Level 3
Technical assessment of AI systems
Specialist competence to audit, test and validate systems. This is the country’s most critical gap: without national assessors, Portugal imports the certification of its own AI — and pays import prices for it.
For engineering, audit and regulators · a precondition for a credible enforcement unit
Monitoring closes the loop: the AI CENSUS measures, the Passport trains, the Radar tracks the effect. Without measurement, a skills plan is a list of intentions with a budget.
05 · Take part
Skills are the only AI
policy that works
from the inside.
If you represent a business association, a university, a trade union or a municipality, the AI CENSUS needs your network to achieve national coverage — and the Skills College is where that work is designed.