Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a transformative impact on both the labour market and education systems. Vocational education and training (VET) leaders play a crucial role in shaping the future of education and training by guiding strategic decisions and policy directions; without VET leaders, efforts to integrate AI into VET risk facing significant barriers to wider uptake. Research that is focused on harnessing AI capabilities to innovate VET systems and the leadership required are rare. Therefore, the aim of this study is to assess VET leaders' acceptance of AI (TAM, Davis, 1989; UTAUT, Venkatesch et al., 2003). An online survey was conducted in February 2023 to assess the general acceptance of AI and AI-based use cases for VET. A total of 111 VET experts participated in the online survey. Each expert is a senior VET manager who leads a specific unit in the VET system. The empirical data suggest that there may be widespread agreement among VET leaders about the ability of personalised competence development to improve equity and inclusivity. However, use cases for increasing the strength of the links between the labour market and education system with data-driven approaches are less widely accepted. The empirical findings of this study provide a situational analysis of the acceptance of AI by VET leaders. Furthermore, the findings can also elucidate existing knowledge gaps of VET leaders regarding AI capabilities, applications, and implications.