Innovating with AI
Coaching, community & curriculum to help everyone thrive in our AI‑powered future.
Most people still think ChatGPT is just a toy
Hey Reader, A few weeks ago, I wrote about the two parallel universes in AI adoption – depending on who you asked, it seemed like AI was either "changing everything" or "doing nothing." This week, I'm thinking about a corollary to that idea, inspired by my AI consulting students' experience doing big corporate trainings out in the wild: On one hand, it seems like...AI is everywhere all the time.On the other hand...The median adult knows basically nothing about AI, beyond having briefly used...
AI consultants being deployed at $900/hr
Hey Reader, I had a chance to chat with two big media outlets – Fortune and Mixergy – about AI consulting this week. A lot of people are shocked by the level of demand they're seeing for AI advisory work... but the results we're seeing from our students (which I'll be showing you a lot more of soon) line up with the seemingly wild headlines. • Fortune: AI consultants are being deployed as engineers and getting paid $900 per hour AI consultant Rob Howard told Fortune he wasn’t surprised at...
The GPT-5 Mess
Hey Reader, Hard truth from last week's messy launch of GPT-5: being the best at training AI models doesn't automatically make you good at delivering consumer products. As I discussed with my AI Consultancy Project students yesterday, this disconnect between technical excellence and user experience creates chaos for the world's most popular companies, and introduces new opportunities for those of us guiding organizations through the AI revolution. The ‘Abrupt Transition’ Problem OpenAI's...
When will AI replace all coders?
Hey Reader, This week I'm digging into a question that comes up a lot among students – as well as among all my software engineer friends, many of whom have been coding for money for 20+ years. Are coders truly cooked as a result of AI? It's ironic, of course, that the first white-collar job to be replaced by AI is likely to be the job that many of AI's creators held for most of their careers. It also makes a lot of sense – the folks who are making large language models are coders themselves,...
AI, climate, water and groceries (the real data)
Hey Reader, This week, my students and I have been talking a lot about the climate effects of AI. The footprint of AI usage has been a big issue for years – and it's become an even more common question because of viral headlines claiming that AI "drinks a bottle of water" to generate even a small amount of content. And it's about more than just quantifying resource usage. In our new post in Innovating with AI Magazine, author Amy Smith explores how grocery stores can use AI to optimize their...
83% prefer AI search over 'Googling'
Hey Reader, Love 'em or hate 'em, AI search tools are rapidly becoming the most efficient way to find answers online. That's one takeaway from our first proprietary survey of Innovating with AI readers – shared today in our latest post in Innovating with AI Magazine (free for everyone). See the full article and data In addition to the new data, intrepid IWAI reporter Tim Keary has interviewed thought leader Nick Reese (the first Director of Emerging Technology Policy at the US Department of...
AI's role in a recession
Hey Reader, It's hard to see past the chaos in the White House, but I want to share something with you that I told my team a few months ago: When history tells the story of the 2020s, AI will be the main character, and Donald Trump will be a footnote. This week it seems likely that Trump will send his country and several others into a recession. But despite his temporary power and his fame/infamy, he's a small man in a big decade. Our grandkids will be reading history books like this: "In the...
Clean Energy + AI = Our Abundant Future (New Must-Read)
Hey Reader, It's a big week in energy, growth and center-left thinking because of the release of the new book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. If you don't know them, they're two of the preeminent columnists and podcasters at The New York Times and The Atlantic. One of the central ideas of the book is that cheap, clean energy is the linchpin of our future growth and success as a society. This is especially true in the realm of AI. Think about it – if we unlocked more cheap, clean...
'The most rapid change in human communication ever'
Hey Reader, There's always a TON going on in the AI economy – today's newsletter is about the two most important ones. 🙂 But before we dive in, could you take 2 minutes to help me make Innovating with AI even better? Click here to take an anonymous 2-minute survey to help make IWAI the best it can be. And with that, here's the latest... ••• #1 – 'The past 18 months have seen the most rapid change in human written communication ever' Ethan Mollick, who's one of my favorite "AI poster" types on...
5 AI Predictions for 2025 (AI hype dying; real opportunities rising)
Hey Reader, It's 2025 and as I look at the greater landscape of AI, I've got 5 predictions on what you can expect this year. Before we dive in, here's the larger context on why this is relevant whether you're an AI consultant, working in or on a business that's being affected by AI, or an AI enthusiast that likes to stay in the know: The AI Economy will add $15 trillion to global GDP by 2030. That's the big number from "Sizing the prize" – PwC's Global AI Study. They're not the only ones who...
Coaching, community & curriculum to help everyone thrive in our AI‑powered future.