Get AI-Literate—Fast

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This article is for those of you who want to learn more about AI, but feel like you’re already behind. You’re not a technologist. You don’t code. You don’t build models. And you know that AI is not just another shiny tech trend. It’s reshaping how value is created, how work gets done, and how competitive advantage is built.

And yet, every time someone brings up transformers or fine-tuning, you feel like you're two steps behind in a conversation that’s moving faster than ever.

You’re not alone. The pace is dizzying. The hype is exhausting. And most “how to learn AI” advice is written either for developers or by marketers trying to sell you something.

This article is the opposite. It’s a field guide for professionals who want to be fluent, not fluent-adjacent. You don’t need to become an AI expert—but you do need to be AI-literate enough to ask better questions, identify real opportunities, and steer your business or career with confidence.

Here’s how to get there—without burning out or going back to school.

Step 1: Start with strategy, not technical detail

Forget neural nets and gradient descent. You don’t need to know how AI works to understand what it does. Start by zooming out: AI is not a monolith—it’s a set of tools that do three big things better and faster than humans:

  • Analyze large volumes of unstructured information
  • Generate new content, insights, or outputs
  • Automate routine or repetitive decision-making

What does that mean for you? AI thrives in roles that involve research, summarizing, writing, optimizing, and making sense of complexity. Sound familiar? That’s most knowledge work.

The mindset shift is this: don’t think “tool.” Think new capability. AI is less like Microsoft Word and more like hiring an extremely fast, slightly unpredictable analyst.

To get oriented, start with two excellent resources:

  • Harvard Business Review’s “Age of AI” issue offers a strategic lens on what AI means for companies and leaders.
  • Andrew Ng’s “AI for Everyone” course is a short, free, non-technical primer designed for business professionals. It takes less than two hours and pays dividends for months.
Step 2: Learn by doing—use AI daily

Reading about AI is helpful. Using it is transformative. You’ll learn more in ten minutes of hands-on experimentation than in ten hours of theoretical explanation.

Start by picking one or two tools and making them part of your daily routine:

  • ChatGPT (GPT-4o): Use it to draft emails, summarize articles, brainstorm messaging, or rework LinkedIn bios. 
  • Claude or Perplexity: Ask complex questions, digest long documents, or extract insights from PDFs.
  • Google Workspace AI or Microsoft Copilot: Let it suggest edits, write slide content, or generate formulas in Sheets or Excel.

Try this: Take your last customer pitch, internal memo, or board update and drop it into ChatGPT. Ask it to rewrite it for a different audience. Or turn it into a tweet. Or a headline. Or a blog post.

You’ll immediately get a feel for how the machine thinks—what it does well, where it struggles, and how it can help you move faster.

Step 3: Curate a smarter feed

AI is moving fast. The problem isn’t lack of information—it’s too much of it. What you need is signal over noise. Here's how to build a high-quality, low-effort learning loop.

Podcasts worth your time:

  • Lenny’s Podcast – Sharp, strategic convos on AI, product, and startup thinking.
  • How I AI – Everyday professionals share the AI tools and workflows they use.
  • Me, Myself, and AI – Interviews with execs deploying AI inside Fortune 500s.
  • The Artificial Intelligence Show – Quick updates on what’s new and why it matters.
  • AI in Business Podcast – Use cases and return on investment, not sci-fi.

Substacks and newsletters worth skimming:

  • Product Compass – Thoughtful writing on AI and product strategy.
  • Product Growth – Focused on how AI changes GTM, funnels, and growth loops.
  • Lenny’s Newsletter – Curated frameworks, founder insights, and timely AI takes.
  • Ben’s Bites and The Rundown AI – Fast, useful summaries of daily AI news.
  • Why Try AI – Weekly real-world use cases, mostly non-technical.

Pick two or three. Scan them over coffee or on a walk. Don’t try to absorb everything. You’re building familiarity, not passing an exam.

Step 4: Automate your daily AI digest

Here’s a power move: let AI keep you informed about AI.

If you’re using ChatGPT with the GPT-4o model, try this prompt:

“Send me a daily summary of AI news at 8 a.m. every day.”

You can customize it:

  • “Only include updates relevant to B2B SaaS.”
  • “Highlight any new research on productivity tools.”
  • “Summarize any major announcements from OpenAI, Anthropic, or Meta.”

GPT will automatically pull key headlines, tools, and research papers into a clean, daily digest—delivered by email, Slack, or directly in your workspace.

In ten minutes a day, you’ll stay more current than 95% of people claiming to be “AI-aware.”

Step 5: Pick a real use case and try it

Now it’s time to build real fluency. Pick one thing you do regularly—something that’s repeatable, time-consuming, or frustrating—and test how AI can help.

A few good entry points:

  • Writing: emails, bios, social posts, follow-ups, talking points.
  • Summarizing: meeting notes, legal docs, research reports, earnings calls.
  • Analyzing: surveys, contracts, PDFs, trends across web data.
  • Planning: agendas, checklists, trip logistics, workflows.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’re prepping for a sales pitch or investor meeting. Drop in your notes and say:

“Give me a bulleted prep brief, highlight competitive risks, and list potential objections based on this background.”

What comes back might not be perfect—but it’ll give you a head start. And that’s the point. AI becomes your thinking partner, your amplifier—not your replacement.

You’ll start to notice a few things:

  • When it saves you real time.
  • When it gives you better output than you’d write tired at 10 p.m.
  • When it’s confidently wrong—and how to spot it.

Every one of these is a rep. And reps build fluency.

Always sense-check important outputs. AI can hallucinate or misinterpret your prompt—and while it’s fast, it’s not infallible. Your judgment still matters. Every one of these is a rep. And reps build fluency.

You don’t need to be a techie—but you can’t be passive

This is not about becoming an AI engineer. But it is about becoming someone who understands where the world is going—and can navigate it with confidence.

AI fluency is the new business literacy. Just like you wouldn’t outsource all your financial thinking to a CFO, or all your strategy to a consultant, you can’t afford to blindly outsource your understanding of AI.

Think back to the early days of the internet. The leaders who adapted early didn’t need to know HTML—but they understood that a website wasn’t just a brochure. It was a distribution engine. A sales channel. A transformation.

This is that moment again. Only bigger.

So start small. Get curious. It’s perfectly fine to be bad at it for a while. But don’t sit this one out.

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