Executive Summary
An inclusive AI literacy session designed for senior citizens — practical, jargon-free, and focused on everyday confidence, safety, and privacy rather than technical depth.
The Context
As AI tools become part of everyday life — communication, information, and daily tasks — older adults are often left out of mainstream AI literacy efforts, which tend to assume technical comfort and workplace context that don't apply to this audience.
The Challenge
Building genuine confidence and safety awareness for a non-technical, non-workplace audience required a different starting point than enterprise AI training: plain language, real daily-life relevance, and explicit attention to safety, privacy, and scam awareness.
The Synottic Approach
Synottic designed the session around accessible language, everyday scenarios, and a pace suited to learners encountering AI concepts for the first time — applying the same Human-Centred AI principle of starting with the person, not the technology, to a completely different audience than typical enterprise programs.
Practical Applications
- Practical, everyday uses of AI tools relevant to daily life
- Building confidence through hands-on, low-pressure practice
- Understanding privacy risks and how to recognize AI-related scams
- Encouraging safe, curious, and responsible everyday use of AI
Human-Centred Design Principles
The session deliberately set aside enterprise framing and workplace vocabulary in favor of accessible, respectful, jargon-free design — treating confidence and safety, not technical proficiency, as the measure of success for this audience.
What We Learned
Practical lessons from this engagement that apply beyond this specific audience.
What Other Organizations Can Apply
- 1AI literacy for non-workplace audiences needs its own design, not a simplified version of enterprise training.
- 2Safety and privacy awareness matter as much as functional AI skills for first-time learners.
- 3Confidence grows fastest through hands-on practice at a comfortable, unhurried pace.
