With the rise of Artificial Intelligence will it level the playing field or deepen the divide that already exists?
What we already know
As technology advances, the gap in digital access and confidence known as the digital divide becomes increasingly apparent. In the 21st century digital skills shape education, employability and everyday life (Zou et al., 2025). With artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly growing exploring this divide has become more urgent. Bentley’s (2024) “The digital divide in action: how experiences of digital technology shape future relationships with artificial intelligence” shows how disparities in confidence and access influence the ways people perceive and interact with AI.
The digital divide reflects broader social inequalities, often described as ‘digital poverty’ (Manduna, 2016) and research confirms that being on the wrong side of this divide leads to a lower quality of life reinforcing the importance of tackling this issue (Ali et al., 2020). Tackling this issue is therefore critical if AI is to benefit everyone and to ensure emerging technologies reduce rather than reinforce the existing divide.
To understand the impact of the digital divide on experiences and attitudes with AI we need to assess the relationships between these factors. This paper aims to address this through investigating 3 key questions: (1) Factors affecting digital confidence, (2) Does digital confidence relate to experiences and attitudes towards AI?, (3) Does being confident online shape AI attitudes and experiences. Through understanding these relationships its gives us insight to the development of AI that supports equality across all communities.
“We still have millions of people who are excluded from basic digital inclusion, let alone an AI version of society.”
Helen Milner, Chief Executive, Good Things Foundation, 2023
WHat did the study investigate
- Factors affecting digital confidence.
2. Does digital confidence relate to experiences and attitudes towards AI?
3. Does being confident online shape AI attitudes and experiences?
Methods
To explore how digital confidence shapes peoples experiences and attitudes towards AI the researchers conducted an online survey with 303 participants from Australia and captured a representative sample across gender, age and education.
The study had 6 measures:
- Socio-demographic factors
- Digital engagement: how often participants used everyday technologies.
- Digital wellbeing: whether technology made them feel more or less capable
- Digital confidence scale: three-item scale where people rated awareness of digital technology, familiarity with digital technology, and level of competency with this technology.
- AI experiences
- AI attitudes
results
1. Factors affecting digital confidence
- Women and older adults reported lower confidence.
- Higher income was related to higher confidence.
- People who had higher digital engagement had higher confidence.
- Those who feared technology harmed their wellbeing reported lower confidence.
2. Does digital confidence relate to experiences and attitudes towards AI ?
Higher levels of digital confidence were significantly associated with more positive experiences and attitudes with AI.
3. Does being confident online shape AI attitudes and experiences?
Digital confidence changed how much AI experiences influenced personal attitudes. As shown below digital confidence significantly improves the experience of AI and attitudes towards AI in both general terms and opinions on its global impact and personal impact.
Strengths & limitations
| Strength+Limitation | Why? | Future research… |
| 1. Small sample | The digital divide often reflects differences across cultures and countries (Bartikowoski et al., 2018). As this research was conducted in Australia, a well developed country, the results may not capture broader contexts. | While this study examined a diverse group of participants across socio‑demographic factors, it highlights a gap in both this and prior research: the need to explore internet access across different countries, not just within societal groups. |
| 2. Self-reported data | Self-reported data brings issues of social desirability, memory limitations and bias. | Future research should not solely rely on self-reported data due to the offers of bias and social desirability ( Branner & Delamater, 2016) |
| 3. Wide demographic | Previous research has proven the digital divide is a social inequality (Robinson et al., 2015). | This study is strengthened by the representative sample used as data can be drawn for a wide range of societies and cultures. |
COnclusion
This study highlights the importance of digital confidence. It reveals that that experiences and attitudes towards AI are shaped not only by access but by how capable and comfortable using technology. By strengthening digital skills AI can be made more inclusive helping to reduce inequalities and enhance overall quality of life. Such efforts enable society and policymakers to position AI as a tool for empowerment rather than exclusion and creating a positive shift in work, education, healthcare and everyday life.
Earlier research often treated accessibility as the sole cause of the digital divide (Van Dijk, 2006) but its proved to be far more complex and AI may intensify inequalities. Groups with lower confidence – including women, older adults and those with lower incomes- gain fewer benefits from AI even when they use it. Unless these gaps are addressed AI could create a new digital divide and widen existing disadvantages (Gonzales, 2024; Suarez & Garcia-Marinoso, 2025).
Research has already shown that the digital divide extends beyond access to include effective use of technology (Gunkle, 2003). This underscores the need measure not just who is using digital tools but also their attitudes and confidence towards them. As the digital space evolves issues of digital literacy as broadening (Kindarji & Wong, 2023) and the rise of AI has the potential to stretch the divide further.
AI’s influence is far reaching, transforming multiple sectors such as employment and education (Capraro et al., 2023). It is not only reshaping industries but also changing how we live, learn and connect. However, its rapid integration within society raises concern with many groups risking being excluded allowing AI to deepen the digital divide.
References
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