Abstract：Leaderspractitioners and scientistsawareness of artificial intelligence in librariesa pilot study PurposeThis study investigates the level of artificial intelligenceAIawareness among library leaderspractitioners and scientists of Indonesian academic libraries to elucidate the benefits of AI implementation and its necessary infrastructure and challengesDesignmethodologyapproachThe study adopted a purposive sampling technique to select the 38 participants and thematic analysis to analyze the dataidentifying eight themesunderstanding of AIAI adoptionbenefits of AIcompetencies needed to support AIfacilities to support AIfactors supporting AI adoptionAI-inhibiting factors and expectations of AIFindingsDifferent viewpoints provided full awareness among library stakeholders and sufficient information to begin AI initiatives in Indonesian libraries as leaderspractitioners and scientists had a favorableopen and encouraging outlook on AIResearch limitationsimplicationsThe study does not investigate variations in perspectives between the participantsbut it examines their understanding of AI and elaborates the results into the concept of an intelligent libraryMoreoverthis study only uses samples from academic librariesPractical implicationsLibraries can take these results into consideration before implementing AIespecially in technology and facilitieslibrarian competency with regard to AI and leadership roles in AI projectsSocial implicationsLibrary boards and library associations can use this research as a source to create guidelines about AI implementation in academic librariesOriginalityvalueThe study addresses the gap in the research on university librariesreadiness and awareness to implement AIespecially in developing countriesLibrary Automationautomated library systemsuch as OPACinformation retrievaletcCollection classificationautomated classification and catalog workThis study mainly discusses the awareness of AI in the Indonesian Academic Librarys leaderspractitioners and scientistsas well as the benefits and infrastructure and challenges required by the implementation of AIThe study did not specifically point out the specific technology or category of AIbut pays more attention to the potential application and influence of AI in the library