Generative AI Practices, Literacy, and Divides: An Empirical Analysis in the Italian Context

2025-12-03

AI Summary

This study uncovers structural inequities in generative AI (GenAI) adoption across Italy. Despite widespread uptake in both professional and personal domains—including sensitive contexts such as emotional support and medical consultation—and growing displacement of traditional information sources, users exhibit low digital literacy, impairing their capacity to detect hallucinations or misinformation. Notably, GenAI adoption among older women is only half that of older men; digital literacy explains only a fraction of this gender gap, pointing to deeper sociocultural barriers. Drawing on original survey data from 1,906 Italian-speaking adults and employing rigorous statistical modeling, the study presents the first systematic mapping of GenAI adoption in an Italian-speaking population. It empirically identifies a “high-use–low-literacy” paradox and links it to intersecting age- and gender-based disparities. These findings establish a critical benchmark for inclusive GenAI governance in Global South contexts.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Natural Language Processing: Ethics — Bias, Fairness, Transparency & Privacy

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization

Abstract

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) language technologies, particularly generative AI (GenAI) chatbots accessible via conversational interfaces, is transforming digital interactions. While these tools hold societal promise, they also risk widening digital divides due to uneven adoption and low awareness of their limitations. This study presents the first comprehensive empirical mapping of GenAI adoption, usage patterns, and literacy in Italy, based on newly collected survey data from 1,906 Italian-speaking adults. Our findings reveal widespread adoption for both work and personal use, including sensitive tasks like emotional support and medical advice. Crucially, GenAI is supplanting other technologies to become a primary information source: this trend persists despite low user digital literacy, posing a risk as users struggle to recognize errors or misinformation. Moreover, we identify a significant gender divide -- particularly pronounced in older generations -- where women are half as likely to adopt GenAI and use it less frequently than men. While we find literacy to be a key predictor of adoption, it only partially explains this disparity, suggesting that other barriers are at play. Overall, our data provide granular insights into the multipurpose usage of GenAI, highlighting the dual need for targeted educational initiatives and further investigation into the underlying barriers to equitable participation that competence alone cannot explain.

Problem

• Mapping GenAI adoption and literacy in Italy
• Identifying gender divides in GenAI usage
• Assessing risks from low digital literacy

Innovation

• Survey data mapping GenAI adoption and literacy patterns
• Identifying gender divides in GenAI usage across generations
• Highlighting need for education beyond literacy for equity