Interventions for enhancing digital and AI competence among university students: A narrative synthesis of empirical evidence

Digital transformation in higher education increasingly requires university students to combine broad digital competence with emerging artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI literacy. Yet the available evidence is heterogeneous: intervention studies coexist with psychometric validation, cross-sectional assessment, curriculum mapping, institutional analyses, and reviews of specialized applications. This narrative review synthesizes 25 publications retained from 8,072 records identified through a Web of Science Core Collection search covering 2015–2026 and completed on September 19, 2026, with particular attention to empirical interventions intended to enhance digital or AI-related competence among university students. The review addresses four questions: the types of interventions implemented; how interventions are designed, delivered, and assessed; their reported outcomes and conditions of success; and the extent to which AI literacy is integrated into broader digital competence development. Across the source set, intervention approaches include DigComp-guided teaching, AI-supported instructional models, modular competence development, blended digital/media literacy training, project-based learning, alternance training, and curriculum-level initiatives. DigComp 2.2 and related DigComp-based approaches are prominent, while the Artificial Intelligence Competence and Literacy Test (CAIA) represents a more AI-specific measurement direction. Reported intervention studies generally indicate gains in targeted competence, although the evidence base is constrained by small samples in several studies, heterogeneous designs and outcomes, reliance on self-perception in parts of the literature, and limited evidence about durability and transfer. Contextual studies further suggest that institutional support, prior AI experience, psychological readiness, self-efficacy, curriculum alignment, ethics, and critical information practices shape competence development. The synthesis indicates a transition from generic digital literacy toward integrated digital–AI competence, but the field still requires stronger intervention designs, validated performance-based assessment, explicit generative AI components, and research across diverse educational and cultural settings.