Think of AI as a “motorcycle of the mind.”

“Steve Jobs used to say that computers are a bicycle for the mind,” says Nick Thompson. “I think of AI as a motorcycle for the mind.”

Nick is the CEO of The Atlantic, former editor-in-chief of WIRED, and author of the forthcoming book The Running Ground. He explains how he uses generative AI tools not only to do various tasks for him, but to improve his skills: “to test myself, to challenge my assumptions, to learn new things.”

He argues that technology will help us level up our capacity in the long term. “Technology does distract us,” he says, “but it also allows us to become much more sophisticated in how we process information. Our ability to imagine greater things just expands with time.”

Ask not what AI can do for you.

When we start implementing AI into our workflows, many of us spend time figuring out what AI can help us with. But that’s not the best way to start.

“What ends up happening is that you pivot a lot—because there are many, many things that AI can do—and never really get any of the successes you need,” says Radhika Dirks, global AI advisor and CEO of XLabs.

Instead, start with a vision. “What do you want to create?” Radhika asks. “The more daring, the more impossible it sounds, the better. Don’t hesitate to sound different. And what you will soon realize is that the right technology, the right AI, the right talent will come to you.”

Always doing the same thing? AI can help.

Every job has areas of repetition—yours is probably no different. What if you could free yourself up to do more exciting strategic work?

“You have codified systems, strategies, and processes. It stands to reason that there’s a lot of repetition in them,” says Fab Dolan, founder of the AI startup 99Ravens and former Global Chief Marketing Officer for Android. “These repeatable, high-value processes can become building material for AI systems.”

And that doesn’t mean just writing the same email over and over. At his startup 99Ravens, Fab is using AI to make cross-team conversations easier by making individual expertise more accessible to the whole team. “That’s the biggest opportunity for most people within AI right now.”

Remember: You’ve been here before.

AI may seem like a brand-new challenge. But you’ve done this before.

“The internet, the mobile phone—this isn’t any different,” says Justin Reilly. “In many ways, AI is even more accessible to companies. If you were trying to build for the smartphone in 2007, there were maybe five companies in the world that could help you. Now, you can just sign up for an account with an LLM and start playing with it.”

The CEO of Wavelo and former Head of Product at Verizon, Justin has spent a career spearheading AI transformations. He suggests looking back to what your internet and mobile rollouts looked like—and then bringing the lessons you learned into your AI strategy.

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