This report investigates what “AI readiness” looks like for student teachers as generative AI has become embedded in routine practices across Initial Teacher Education (ITE), including planning, teaching, assessment and professional reflection. It conceptualises readiness as an ecologically produced profile—captured in the proposed AIRED framework—comprising AI expertise (capability and knowledge), AI acceptance (perceived value and intention to use), and AI anxiety (concerns and unease), shaped by institutional supports, tutor modelling, school placement conditions, and governance. Using an integrated conceptual framing (AI as an ecosystem in ITE; Touretzky et al.’s Five Big Ideas in AI; Luckin et al.’s AI readiness lens; and critical perspectives on teacher identity and autonomy), the study examines student teachers’ attitudes to generative AI, patterns of current use, the relationship between readiness and anxiety, and conditions for ethically defensible practice across university and placement contexts. An online questionnaire was administered across two cross-border ITE contexts on the island of Ireland (PME in Ireland and PGCE in Northern Ireland), yielding 208 responses (approximately 40% response rate). Quantitative measures used adapted validated scales (attitudes to AI/ GAAIS; AI anxiety/ Wang & Wang; behavioural intention to use AI/Chai et al.) and were analysed in SPSS (including exploratory factor analysis and inferential statistics for subgroup comparisons), alongside embedded open-ended responses analysed using qualitative descriptive thematic analysis. Findings indicate uneven self-reported AI capability and tool use (with ChatGPT most commonly used), broadly similar profiles across gender, age, and location, and task-sensitive caution that intensifies for higher-stakes practices such as assessment and AI-as-tutor uses. Qualitative data reveal a pattern of bounded optimism: participants value generative AI for workload reduction and idea generation, but position it as supplementary and contingent on verification, explicit boundaries, and clear ethical guidance. Six concern clusters recur across responses: ethical/regulatory uncertainty, dehumanisation of learning, social–emotional impacts, reliability/misinformation, equity and access, and employment/displacement. These findings align with broader strategic challenges where policy ambition and rapid technological change outpace consistent implementation supports within education systems, underscoring the need for coherent guidance, capacity-building, and placement-aligned governance. The report concludes by outlining implications for ITE design and policy, arguing that readiness should be cultivated as disciplined professional practice rather than tool adoption, and that AIRED offers a practical framework for diagnosing readiness profiles and targeting supports in programme and placement contexts.
