Prepare Enabling Roles
AI literacy efforts are more successful when the people supporting workers, managers, trainers, mentors, career counselors, are equipped with the right knowledge and tools to guide others effectively. These individuals are not just secondary learners; they require tailored approaches that reflect their unique roles in enabling others.
"Prepare Enabling Roles" is the sixth delivery principle of the DOL AI Literacy Framework (TEN 07-25). It requires that the people who support learners, managers, trainers, mentors, career counselors, HR and L&D leaders, receive their own tailored AI literacy, through train-the-trainer models, manager upskilling, career-navigation support, and peer champions.
Last verified against the DOL source: August 20, 2026. What changed
Score your program on these five checkpointsWhat the framework says
Paraphrased: AI literacy efforts are "more successful when the people supporting workers, such as managers, trainers, mentors, or career counselors, are equipped with the right knowledge and tools to guide others effectively." These enablers are "not just secondary learners, they require tailored approaches to AI literacy that reflect their unique roles in enabling others."
The five example delivery approaches:
- 6.1
Train-the-trainer models
Equipping instructors, coaches, or facilitators with targeted AI literacy content and methods to deliver, reinforce, and contextualize learning for others.
- 6.2
Manager upskilling
Providing AI literacy focused on use cases relevant to team oversight, change management, and integrating AI tools into daily operations.
- 6.3
Career navigation support
Tailoring AI literacy for career counselors or mentors so they can guide learners on how AI tools impact job search, career growth, and evolving skill needs.
- 6.4
Peer learning champions
Identifying and training peer leaders with the right framing to serve as accessible, informal sources of support and enthusiasm within teams.
- 6.5
HR and L&D alignment
In a corporate setting, ensuring those leading key learning functions understand how to embed AI literacy across onboarding, upskilling, and internal mobility pathways.
Reproduced from the public framework text under 17 U.S.C. section 105. Read the source on dol.gov.
What it means in practice
Training fails at the manager layer more than anywhere else: a workforce completes literacy training, returns to teams whose managers neither use AI nor believe in it, and the new behavior dies in a month. The framework's fix is to treat enablers as a distinct learner population with distinct content, managers need oversight and change-management literacy, not the frontline curriculum re-delivered. The career-navigation marker matters specifically for workforce boards and American Job Centers: counselors are the framework's distribution channel to job seekers, and they need their own track before they can guide anyone else's.
How programs fail this provision
Train-the-user-only: the frontline gets trained, enablers get a memo. Predictable result, no reinforcement, no modeling, no one to ask. Second failure: generic manager training that teaches the same prompting exercises instead of the oversight skills (setting review norms, spotting unreviewed AI output, guiding adoption). Inspection question: were managers trained before the rollout, and was their training about leading AI use, or just using AI?
The five checkpoints this provision scores on
Instructors, coaches, or facilitators receive targeted AI literacy content and methods (train-the-trainer).
Framework marker: Train-the-trainer models
Managers receive AI literacy focused on team oversight, change management, and integrating AI into daily operations.
Framework marker: Manager upskilling
Career counselors and mentors are equipped to guide learners on AI's impact on job search, career growth, and skill needs.
Framework marker: Career navigation support
Peer leaders are identified and trained as informal, accessible sources of support within teams.
Framework marker: Peer learning champions
HR/L&D leaders understand how to embed AI literacy across onboarding, upskilling, and internal mobility.
Framework marker: HR and L&D alignment
How GAGE addresses it
In AI Literacy and Professional Conduct, this provision sits in AI in the Workplace and Team Leadership and Bonus: AI Leadership Accelerator and Bonus: AI for Educators. Every topic in the program ends in a mastery assessment, and the teach-back gate asks the learner to explain the material back in their own words before it counts as understood, which is the difference between a program that covers a checkpoint and one that can evidence it.
Module titles come from the program registry, so this cannot drift away from what the program contains. GAGE is a private company: the program is built to the DOL framework, and DOL neither certifies nor endorses it or any other program.
Questions about this provision
Who counts as an "enabling role"?
The framework names managers, trainers, mentors, career counselors, instructors, coaches, facilitators, peer leaders, and HR/L&D leaders, anyone whose job is to support other people's AI learning.
Why do enablers need different content?
Because their job is enabling, not just using: the framework says they require "tailored approaches", oversight, change management, and guidance skills on top of baseline literacy.
Does your program actually meet this provision?
Answer the five checkpoints above and the other 55, and get a dated report that scores your program provision by provision. Free, and your answers stay in your browser.
What this means for workforce boards
TEN 07-25 for Workforce Boards: WIOA-Funded AI Literacy, Designed to the DOL Framework
GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education) is a private education company, not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Labor. DOL does not certify or endorse training programs. Framework summaries are drawn from the public TEN 07-25 document. Read TEN 07-25 on dol.gov. Last verified: August 20, 2026.
Last verified against the DOL source: August 20, 2026. What changed