Worrying about being left behind by AI isn’t as helpful as understanding where it is already useful for you at this time. Here are some helpful themes i have found recurring recently in my work as I navigate this generative wave of AI.
Start with play
Explore capabilities and the experience of using AI tools for yourself, with no real goal in mind but play.
For any given task, try out at least two different company’s models and compare results. If you have an engineering or tinkering background, try to run an open source model locally as your third.
Understand AI Super Powers
For any field you already have an interest in, use AI as a thought partner to expand your surface area of knowledge. Remember, it hallucinates, so better to start with fields where you know enough not to be fooled.
Ask more about your interests, what practical tasks are typical in this area, and how you can do a specific task. Increasingly, these AI powered tools can assist in taking things forward, or sometimes even get the job done.
Look at your work again
“Find out what AI can now do, in areas you’re working a lot on, should be working a lot on, or did a lot of work on in the past.”
This wave of generative AI not only brings more creative capabilities to our fingertips, but also makes it easier to leverage and deploy good old traditional AI.
Instead of blindly following hype from any vendors, it’s a great time to think about your work again.
Find that nexus where AI capabilities already excel, can augment some of your current work, or help with those stretch areas you know you should be moving the needle on, but haven’t been able to get to.
Make something (better)
Create something new from an idea that’s been bubbling, or Recreate by using AI to brainstorm ideas that should be bubbling where you’re already working.
Share what you learned
A great part of this generative wave AI is that you can always create something. Regardless of the quality of your output, you learn something from flexing your AI superpowers to make an idea more tangible.
So experiment and share your learnings – even if they’re only bloopers. Can you spot the bloopers in the images I generated using Gemini’s Nano Banana?
