AI Attitude Scale (AIAS-4)

In short

Four questions that show how positive staff are about AI in general. Use it as a quick reading before a rollout, and again afterwards, inside one country.

For whoever runs the assessment: an HR or operations lead, an internal project team, or an outside consultant.

What it measures

One thing: a person’s general attitude to AI, from negative to positive. Four questions, one score.

Its strength is its length. It fits inside any staff survey without making the survey longer in any way people notice.

How to use it

1. Add the four questions to an anonymous staff survey.
2. Report by team, with the spread as well as the average.
3. Add separate questions about specific concerns: job security, workload, loss of skill.
4. Repeat after the rollout and compare each team with itself.
5. Do not compare your result with averages published for other countries.

What it does not measure

• Attitude to AI at work. It asks about AI in general, not about the tool you are introducing or about fears for one’s job.
• Trust. Trusting a system is a different thing from liking the idea of AI.
• Concerns. One score from negative to positive hides people who are keen and worried at once. See measure readiness and resistance separately.

How it was tested

• The original study built the scale and found that the four questions measure one thing, consistently.
• A second study tested a Polish version on 511 people and compared it with samples from the United Kingdom and the United States. The same single-score structure appeared in all three.

One limit came out of that comparison. The scale works the same way in each country only up to a point. That is enough to use it within a country. It is not enough to say that staff in one country are more positive than staff in another. The technical detail: the cross-country test showed the same structure and partly equal question weights, and no equality of score levels.

Licence and access

The English questions are in the 2023 article, open access under CC BY 4.0. The Polish version is published under a stricter licence that does not allow changes or commercial use without consent. For any other language you would translate the English original and test the result.

Alternatives

Other assessments with a similar job, and when to prefer each.

• How far do staff accept AI, and how far do they fear it? Attitude Towards Artificial Intelligence scale (ATAI) Prefer it when you want acceptance and fear as two separate scores, in five questions. Staff, each about their own views · 5 questions Free to use and adapt Testing: Moderate Attitude and trust surveys
• What positive and negative views of AI do staff hold? General Attitudes towards Artificial Intelligence Scale (GAAIS) Prefer it when you have room for 10 or 20 questions and want positive and negative views measured separately. Its licence needs the authors’ consent for translation. Staff, each about their own views · 20 questions, or 10 in the short form Free to use, ask before changing Testing: Strong Attitude and trust surveys
• How far do staff trust one named AI system? Trust in Automation Scale, short form (S-TIAS) Prefer it when the question is trust in a particular AI system, not attitude to AI in general. The people who use that system · 3 questions, or 12 in the long form Free to use and adapt Testing: Moderate Attitude and trust surveys

Practices that use it

• Measure readiness and resistance separately Staff can be keen on AI and worried about it at once. Ask about the two separately. A single “readiness” score hides the worry. Do next · Effort: medium (weeks, a few people) Evidence: Emerging Measurement · Explore

The details

Testing

Strong Tested in the original study and again in Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States, where the four questions held together each time. Average scores cannot be compared between countries.

Looks at

Person

How the answers are collected

A survey answered by each person about their own views.

Length

4 questions

Cost

Free

Licence

CC BY 4.0 (original English version)You may translate and adapt the English version if you credit the author. The Polish version sits in an article under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0: use it unchanged, for non-commercial purposes, or ask the authors.

Languages

English, Polish

By

Grassini, 2023

Sources

1. Grassini (2023). Development and validation of the AI attitude scale (AIAS-4): a brief measure of general attitude toward artificial intelligence. Frontiers in Psychology. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1191628
2. Talik, Talik and Grassini (2025). Measurement invariance of the artificial intelligence attitude scale (AIAS-4): cross-cultural studies in Poland, the USA, and the UK. Current Psychology. doi:10.1007/s12144-025-08348-z

Related studies on this site

• The same AI pressure can raise or lower willingness to use AI Chang, Zhang, Cai and Guo (2024). Does AI-Driven Technostress Promote or Hinder Employees’ Artificial Intelligence Adoption Intention? A Moderated Mediation Model of Affective Reactions and Technical Self-Efficacy. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 17, 413–427.
• Ready for change, resistant, or both? Repovš, Drnovšek and Kaše (2019). Change Ready, Resistant, or Both? Exploring the Concepts of Individual Change Readiness and Resistance to Organizational Change. Economic and Business Review, 21(2).