AI skill really does come in levels, and the honest news is that most people sit a rung or two below where they feel they are. A beginner uses AI and trusts it. An intermediate user uses it and checks it. An advanced user understands why it behaves the way it does, and steers it. The difference is habits and understanding, not natural talent, which means the climb is open to anyone.
This guide is the companion to how good your AI knowledge really is. That one explains why people overrate themselves; this one shows what each level actually looks like, so you can spot your own.
Are there really levels of AI users?
Yes, and the serious frameworks broadly agree on the shape. UNESCO's AI Competency Framework describes a climb across three rising levels: Understand, then Apply, then Create. A person who understands can explain what AI is; one who applies uses it to solve real tasks; one who creates designs and critically shapes how AI is used (UNESCO, 2024). Microsoft's research of 31,000 workers paints the same picture from the other side, sorting people into Skeptics, Novices, Explorers, and Power Users, separated not by access but by how often they use AI and how much they have reshaped their work around it (Microsoft and LinkedIn, 2024).
The Best Answer Hub AI Knowledge Test turns that climb into a clear Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced level, measured across five practical areas rather than a single overall guess.
Beginner, intermediate, advanced across five areas
Nobody is the same level in everything. You might verify carefully but misunderstand how the model works, or prompt well but paste in data you should not. That is why the test scores five separate domains. Here is what each level tends to look like in each one.
| Area | Beginner | Intermediate | Advanced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundations and concepts | Thinks AI looks up stored facts | Knows it predicts likely text | Understands tokens, training, and limits |
| Everyday use | Occasional use, takes the first answer | Weekly use, gives context and iterates | Real workflows rebuilt around AI |
| How generative AI works | Treats AI as magic or search | Knows it can be confidently wrong | Steers it using how it actually works |
| Critical evaluation | Trusts output at face value | Sanity-checks important answers | Verifies anything load-bearing |
| Ethics and responsible use | Unaware of data and bias risks | Cautious with sensitive data | Strips out private data, keeps a human in the loop |
Most people land at different levels across the five areas. That mix is the useful part: it shows exactly which area to work on next, rather than a single number that hides where the real gap is.
What actually moves you up a level?
Habits, mostly. Microsoft's research found that frequent experimentation is the single biggest predictor of becoming a power user: these users are 68% more likely to try new ways of using AI and 66% more likely to redesign a workflow around it than everyone else (Microsoft and LinkedIn, 2024). The second habit is verification. In a 2026 Workday study of 3,200 employees, 77% of regular AI users reviewed AI output as carefully as a human colleague's, and the ones who did not lost nearly 40% of their saved time to rework (Workday, 2026).
Give the model context instead of a bare question. Check anything that matters before you rely on it. And learn, in plain terms, how the model works so its mistakes stop surprising you. None of these need a technical background, and together they move you further than any single clever prompt.
Is being good at prompting the whole story?
It helps, but it is only one area of five. How you prompt genuinely changes output quality: peer-reviewed work showed that asking a model to reason step by step measurably improves its answers (Wei et al., NeurIPS 2022). Yet most people never get that far. The Aalto University study found that people typically prompt ChatGPT only once per question, paste in the problem, and accept the first reply (Aalto University, 2025). Better prompting will move you up, but an advanced user is also the one who understands the model, verifies its output, and uses it responsibly. Prompting alone does not make the level.
The levels are not about talent. They are about whether you trust AI, check it, or understand it.
Why you can’t reliably guess your own level
Because the research is blunt about it: people are poor judges of their own AI skill. The Aalto University study found that everyone overestimated how well they did with ChatGPT, and the people who rated themselves most AI-literate were the most overconfident of all (Aalto University, 2025). A separate 2026 study that built side-by-side self-rated and objective AI-literacy measures found only a weak link between what people said and what they could demonstrate (Zhang et al., LAK26, 2026). The takeaway is simple: feeling like an intermediate or advanced user is not evidence that you are one.
Why your level actually matters
Because most people are nearer the beginner end than they think, and the gap is now visible to employers. Pew Research found 34% of US adults have used ChatGPT, but only 21% of workers use AI for any part of their job, and most of that use is light (Pew Research, 2025). Few have had any guidance: Microsoft found only 39% of workplace AI users were trained by their employer, leaving almost everyone self-taught and unsure (Microsoft and LinkedIn, 2024).
Source: Pew Research Center, 2025. 34% of US adults have used ChatGPT; 21% of US workers use AI for any part of their job.
The level you reach increasingly shows up in pay. PwC's analysis of close to a billion job ads found roles requiring AI skills carried a 56% wage premium, more than double the year before, and 66% of leaders told Microsoft they would not hire someone without AI skills (PwC, 2025). Knowing your real level, and which area is holding you back, is how you close that gap on purpose rather than by luck.
How do you find your real level?
You take a test that scores what you can do, not how you feel. The free AI Knowledge Test serves 50 questions across the five areas, scores each objectively, and returns your level plus a radar showing your strongest and weakest domains, so you know exactly which rung you are on and what to work on next.
Take the free AI Knowledge Test
50 questions, about 20 minutes, no signup and no email. Your level and domain radar are computed in your browser and never uploaded.
Start the free testCommon questions about AI user levels
Sources
- UNESCO, AI Competency Framework for Students, 2024 (Understand / Apply / Create progression).
- Microsoft and LinkedIn, 2024 Work Trend Index, 2024 (user spectrum; 39% trained; power-user habits).
- Aalto University, AI use makes us overestimate our cognitive performance, 2025 (peer-reviewed; ~500 participants).
- Zhang et al., How to Assess AI Literacy: Misalignment Between Self-Reported and Objective-Based Measures, LAK26, 2026.
- Wei et al., Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models, NeurIPS, 2022.
- Workday, Beyond Productivity, 2026 (survey of 3,200 employees; rework and verification).
- Pew Research Center, 34% of US adults have used ChatGPT, 2025.
- Pew Research Center, About 1 in 5 US workers now use AI in their job, 2025.
- PwC, 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer, 2025.
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