Embracing a Human-Centered Approach (1)

This book, and the learning journey I will share, focus on a specific facet of AI: harnessing the technology to boost our own cognitive performance. While AI is being deployed across all kinds of use cases where it makes decisions and acts on them autonomously without human intervention, our focus here is different. We’re exploring how we—as people—can increase our cognitive capabilities and capacity to create by collaborating with AI.

Even if your organization ultimately aims for more comprehensive automation, the approach outlined here serves as an excellent starting point to help your teams familiarize themselves with AI’s strengths, limitations, and capabilities. The rapid advancement of “AI agents” (these are systems designed to make and execute decisions independently) marks an exciting new frontier in automation. However, given our still-maturing understanding of how best to use the technology, many AI use cases still rely on what’s called “human-in-the-loop.” This means that AI informs decision-making, but people remain in charge of interpreting results and driving actions, rather than trusting the system to act on its own.

Thinking with AI inherently emphasizes human-in-the-loop: we are using AI as a cognitive enhancer—to help us think smarter and better—rather than as a replacement. This approach offers an ideal way to jump in now, get firsthand experience with the technology, and build AI muscle across an organization. In fact, as AI reshapes the competitive landscape, forward-thinking organizations are discovering that success lies not just in implementing AI systems, but in helping their teams to Think with AI. Ensuring everyone on your team has direct experience with AI’s capabilities is crucial for any organization hoping to fully leverage this technology—and this is why I consistently advise pairing AI automation initiatives with efforts to help people throughout your organization learn to Think with AI.

A Guide to Getting AI to Serve You

Discovering how to get AI to serve you—starting with that breakthrough “aha” moment when you first see AI deliver something truly useful—is a personal journey that looks different for everyone. A CEO discovered how to use AI as a sounding board for strategy. A 94-year-old found she could use AI to recall words she was struggling to remember. A marketing leader learned how to use AI to accelerate campaign development. A non-profit director discovered how to apply for grants in a fraction of the time it took before. And a mom of four found she could use AI to help her think through strategies for supporting her kids with the challenges they faced both in the classroom and in the schoolyard. With each discovery, I would hear the same realization: “I didn’t know it could do that!”

This book serves as a guide for this personal journey. I’ll help you navigate through the noise, center you on what’s happening in this moment, and provide a roadmap to help you match your unique needs and the new capabilities that AI offers you to discover how AI can be useful in your life. In this journey, we will also cover:

How to shift your mindset to get more out of AI. AI works differently from any other software we’ve experienced. To get value from these new tools, we need to first understand a new way of interacting with software

Advice to move past procrastination. Procrastination often gets in the way of diving into AI. I not only share why you should feel an urgency to learn more about these new tools but also offer practical strategies to jump into a successful learning journey.

Curated recommendations to help you take your learning further. I’ve curated a library of online resources to help you plug into a community of shared learning.

The Next Digital Divide: Which Side Will You Be On?

My hope is that this book will help push back against a new kind of inequality that is quietly taking shape around us.

Early adopters are positioning themselves and their organizations for an AI-infused future by diving in to build AIQ even as the technology and our understanding of how to use it are in their infancy. Yet for many people, AI remains an abstraction—a tool seemingly reserved for other people—tech enthusiasts or specialists—too mysterious or out of reach to be useful in their daily lives or work. From business professionals striving to grow their companies, to social entrepreneurs stretching limited resources to build nonprofit organizations, to small business owners driving local economies, to parents balancing career and family life, many people who play vital roles in our society and economy risk missing out on the potential to supercharge their work.

For some, it is a matter of perception; for others, the demands of daily life have simply pushed AI exploration to the back burner. But as this new digital divide widens, it threatens to reshape the landscape of personal and professional success.

It is not too late to start this journey today, but soon it will be. This genie is not going back in the bottle. In fact, as you will learn in the chapters ahead, AI-driven change is only going to accelerate.

The technology is already intertwining with our lives, weaving its way into the digital experiences we have every day. Chatbots pop up to offer AI help as we go about our daily business at work. Its images infiltrate our social media feeds. Seemingly every day, there is a new headline about it. And any one of us can tap right into the raw power of some of the most advanced AI models ever made by just opening a tab on our browser.

I have spent three decades at the front edge of technology revolutions, from the birth of the dotcom era to the rise of mobile computing. I have devoted my career to understanding how emerging technology impacts people—individuals, organizations, cultures, and society. My work has given me a close-up view of the challenges that come from innovation that has accelerated to a pace that people and institutions—our school systems, the organizations we work for, and governments—struggle to keep up with. I have witnessed firsthand how each wave of change creates a divide between those who adapt quickly and those left behind. How even as these technologies become integral to our lives, their benefits are unevenly distributed.

Now, with AI, we are facing perhaps the most significant technology shift of our lifetimes—one that promises to reshape not just how we work but what is even humanly possible.

The moment OpenAI opened the gates to reveal ChatGPT, everyone—you, your neighbors, kids, community, and coworkers—had the opportunity to tap into advanced AI. And it brought us closer to the precipice of the next digital divide.