Conclusion

This synthesis forms the substantive basis for the next phase of the project. The central challenge for WP3 therefore shifts from the question of how AI can be integrated into education to the question of how study programmes can guide students towards sustainable forms of professional autonomy within AI-integrated professional contexts.

The analysis makes it clear that, in an AI context, professional autonomy is not determined solely by the ability to use AI tools, but by a combination of in-depth understanding, conscious AI-steering, professional judgement and responsibility. Furthermore, the findings suggest that these competences only lead to professional autonomy in their fullest sense when they are supported by professional dispositions that determine whether professionals actually apply their knowledge and judgement within complex AI-integrated work processes.

The scenario typologies provide a useful framework for:

• formulating desired final profiles more explicitly;
• substantiating curriculum choices in terms of content;
• designing learning activities in a targeted manner;
• rethinking forms of assessment;
• making underlying understanding visible;
• and recognising more explicitly the risks of false competence, knowledge erosion and dependent use of AI.

Both sessions make it clear that AI does not simply replace or eliminate professional autonomy, but fundamentally restructures it. Professional added value is shifting away from mere execution and increasingly towards understanding, interpreting, assessing, actively steering and taking responsibility within ever more complex AI-integrated contexts.

At the same time, both sessions demonstrate that this autonomy does not arise of its own accord. Without in-depth understanding, conscious AI-steering and the professional dispositions to actively exercise critical judgement and take responsibility, professional autonomy risks gradually shifting towards dependent AI use, with systems increasingly taking over the thinking and decision-making process.

WP3 therefore faces not only the challenge of integrating AI into curricula, but above all of designing learning environments in which students develop into professionals who use AI critically, purposefully and responsibly. The challenge thus shifts from teaching the use of AI to developing sustainable professional autonomy, in which professionals continue to exercise critical judgement, take responsibility and steer AI in a purposeful manner, even in a future of increasingly capable AI systems.