My Own Experience

I'll be straight up about something.

Less than a year ago, I was using AI the way most people do — the occasional ChatGPT query, maybe a bit of help drafting an email. Useful, but nothing transformative.

Then I started treating it differently. Not as a search engine with personality, but as a genuine collaborator. I gave it context. I gave it my thinking. I challenged its outputs. I built workflows around it.

The difference has been extraordinary.

I now run three business ventures with AI embedded across strategy, content, research, and planning. Tasks that used to take me a day take an hour. Research that would have taken a week gets done in an afternoon. And the quality isn't worse — in many cases it's better, because I'm spending more time thinking and less time on the mechanical work.

I'm not saying this to impress anyone. I'm saying it because the gap between "using AI" and "working with AI" is enormous — and most people are still on the wrong side of it.

If you're dabbling, stop dabbling. Go deeper. The leverage is real.