What's the secret to more meaningful conversations about AI?

There’s something really powerful about watching a child train an AI model to recognise cats… and then immediately ask whether the same technology could help protect wildlife, diagnose disease, or clean up the oceans. That moment - curiosity turning into critical thinking - happened thousands of times across the UK in the first four months of this year during Demystifying AI: From Algorithms to Everyday Life.

Written by Juliet Upton, Project Manager, Demystifying AI, 10 June 2026

As project manager for this national programme, I’ve been privileged to work with a wonderful collaboration of partners over the last 6 months. The programme was devised and coordinated by the Association of Science and Discovery Centres, funded by the UK government’s research and innovation funder, UKRI with the support of one of its research councils, STFC, independently evaluated by expert evaluator, Dr Elizabeth Cunningham and, delivered locally by 15 of the science and discovery centres in communities across all four nations of the UK.

It felt like an important and very timely step on a pathway that we will all have to navigate. Public attitudes to AI are currently being shaped by headlines, social media and of course, the big tech companies. We need to have wider, deeper and more diverse conversations across workplaces, schools and kitchen-tables. But that’s a difficult thing to do without credible information and the ability to trust where it comes from.

The Demystifying AI programme proved that confidence and trust in AI don’t grow from information alone. They grow when people can explore it for themselves, ask difficult questions, test ideas, challenge assumptions and connect emerging technologies to the realities of their own lives.

Over just four months at the beginning of 2026, more than 70,000 people took part in over 1,000 events and activities across the UK. More importantly, attitudes shifted. By the end of the programme, 75 per cent of participants said they better understood AI’s strengths and limitations, while perceptions of AI’s public benefit rose from 52 to 68 per cent. Negative perceptions dropped dramatically from 32 to just 10 per cent.

What made that difference? There’s no doubt in my mind that local delivery with trusted partners won the day. With local businesses, researchers from local universities and in places people know and trust - whether that was at a science and discovery centre or at a local community group.

National coordination, regional personality.

One of the most exciting things about the programme was that every science centre approached AI differently, reflecting the UK nation, the communities, interests and industries around them. Read a quick overview of the projects, or the full colourful case studies report.

Fifteen centres with fifteen different approaches but one shared national mission: To engage the public with meaningful conversations on AI and its place in our society.

Why local trust matters

The programme reinforced something many of the science communicators in the centres already know instinctively. People engage differently when conversations happen in trusted local spaces. Science centres and museums aren’t just venues. They are community anchors. They’re places where families already feel comfortable asking questions, experimenting, making mistakes and being curious together.

That matters enormously when the subject is AI, because many participants arrived carrying uncertainty, anxiety or scepticism. Some worried about job losses. Others associated AI only with chatbots or image generators. Many had never knowingly interacted with AI tools at all.

What changed attitudes wasn’t a glossy campaign or a national advertising message. It was conversation with real people. It was talking to local researchers about biodiversity monitoring in Devon. Meeting robotics scientists in Edinburgh. Exploring fake AI images in Newcastle. Watching children explain machine learning back to their parents in Dundee.

The programme succeeded not because it taught people about AI but because it gave people agency and real participation.

Lessons learned for public engagement

One of the strongest findings from our evaluation was that audiences became more positive about AI when they could connect it to things they genuinely cared about - healthcare, climate science, farming, accessibility, education, space exploration, online safety and their own communities. In other words, AI for public benefit has to feel personal.

That’s a huge lesson for future public engagement. If we want people to feel ownership over emerging technologies, we have to move beyond abstract debates about AI and instead focus on relevance, usefulness and real-world impact.

ASDC has been a pioneer in enabling national coordination to give Demystifying AI scale, quality, shared learning and visibility. I’m also in awe of the 15 Centres who ‘pulled rabbits out of hats’ to achieve so much in such a short time - less than 6 months from start to finish. Their commitment, expertise and connectivity to local communities drove programme delivery on the ground and ensured authenticity.

Perhaps this is the start of a much bigger and more hopeful conversation that we have to have right across the UK about AI? One where AI stops feeling like something happening to people and starts becoming something communities can shape, question and participate in themselves.

Photo shows Juliet (centre) at We The Curious in Bristol taking part in a 'Demystifying AI' meeting AI researchers and taking part in the 'AI in the city' activity. The Deputy Lord Mayor, Councillor Andrew Varney also visited the centre to take part and find out more about engaging the public with AI.