What the AI Push Taught Me

AI intimidated me.

It also fascinated me, and that combination was hard to sit with.

Every post on the company site announced another AI win or new launch. Part of me read those and thought, this is incredible, I want in. The possibilities were real, and I could see it. Another part of me thought, when am I supposed to learn all this? I was already buried in my actual work, and learning something new felt like a second job stacked on top of the first.

So many solutions were available, none of them fully delivered what the evangelists promised, and I had no idea where to start. It also felt unpopular to admit that AI was scary, or that I wasn’t using it like a power user.

Then one day, after a conversation with my stepdad about the good old days, it hit me. This AI stuff is inevitable. Just like he remembers his good old days, mine had passed too. I didn’t have to love the change, but I could choose to be curious about it.

So I asked myself a simple question: what am I most afraid of when it comes to AI?

The answer was easy. It replacing me.

So I said, okay, let’s teach it to replace me.

Teaching AI one part of my job

So on a Saturday, when there were no Slack messages, meetings, or emails to distract me, I opened my laptop and got to work.

Which part of my job should I introduce to the AI tool? For me it was a task I have to complete every month. I look at millions of rows of data covering eleven product inputs and their performance, and roll them into one single output number that measures the health of the business. Not by sales, but by how we delivered on the experience.

I thought of it like training someone new. Someone with zero jealousy about being better than me, zero fear that they would think my thought process was weird, and a willingness to learn at my pace. I sat down and started as if I was training that person to take over this one part of my job.

I gave the AI tool all the background information to date, including why past decisions had been made. I uploaded all of the strategy documents. I built out the pivot tables to show how I was looking at the data, and the why behind it. I explained all I knew and how each metric could influence the other.

It took me fifteen hours that weekend to set up my first skill. The longer lead time came from being new to AI prompting, from the volume of data, and because the tool itself was not as advanced as it is today. But I did it.

AI will not take My job (yet)

What I realized afterwards was just how much I actually knew, and how complex this work was. I taught a machine to do it, and it will likely catch errors and move faster than I can. What made that possible was a skill I already had, and one we all have: getting our thinking out of our heads and onto the page.

We are the truth tellers. We are the source of truth these tools learn from and scale from. We build the knowledge bases so AI can spin off, amplify, and repeat our work across a hundred different scenarios.

We translate product and technical requirements into customer-facing language, not generic value propositions or voice-of-customer statements we think will make a quick impact. We see the white space, build the messaging framework, and decide what the right punchlines should be and how to pull the data for it.

I tested this by dropping in a product launch announcement and the Product Resource Doc from our Tech team. I wanted to see if those two documents alone could produce a full end-to-end campaign, including product page updates, FAQs, and SOPs. It could not. It still took a human to write it, explain it, and translate the technical build into why it matters to customers. That is where the human element comes in.

What I love about it

So what do I love about all of this? Imagine building your own mini executive. Someone who thinks alongside of you, with all of your context, and no ego about it.

What I value most is that I do not feel alone solving a problem. And I do not need to bother anyone either. When I do ask a partner I am coming to them because I have done all I can. Now I come to them more prepared.

It has taken away a bit of the anxiety that I am not going to be able to solve this on my own. It also levels my own thinking. I quickly skip through the lesser value add but needed tasks, and I get to use it as a brainstorming tool or to help me dive deep.

As a Product Marketing Manager I love visualizing the data. And the tech and product part of me wants to know how it got to that answer. I enjoy asking the AI tool to give me the exact formula it used. That has increased my own learning of how models are built and how forecasting is done.

It helps me become a better Product Management Leader.

AI and the human element

Now let’s talk about the real AI use case. Not what it produces for you, but how it changes the way you show up.

I am calmer and more confident. It has leveled the playing field. While I was data and technically inclined before, it now allows me to be more creative, to think about the white space, and to come up with new ideas. I feel less burden that I won’t be able to do it, because I now know some of those tasks can be done with AI.

The work is still mine. The judgment is still mine. AI just gives me more room to spend my energy on the parts only I can do.

Staying curious when AI keeps changing

At this point, most of us have already used AI in our work or personal lives. The fear is no longer about getting started. It is about keeping up with how quickly everything is changing.

I remind myself that most people feel behind. Instead of letting that stop me, I lean further into my curiosity.

Now when someone shares a report or document I really enjoyed reading, I get curious about how it came together. How did you prompt it? What made you pick that tool out of all the options? Did you use a generic chat, or an agent you built yourself, or one someone else made?

If you are worried about keeping up, bring AI into more of your conversations. Ask people what they are using and how they are learning. Stay curious, learn from others, and remember that none of us has completely figured this out.