You're Not Behind: Become AI-Native (without tech skills)

Every week someone tells me they feel behind on AI. But I want you to look at this chart. Each dot represents 3.2 million people. The great bits. That's 84% of the world. They never use AI. The green. That's the free chatbot users. And that's just 16%. And the people actually paying for an AI tool just 0.3%. So that feeling that you have about being behind, don't be because most of the world has even started yet.

After training thousands of professionals on digital skills. and AI and previously worked with companies such as Google, meta. and Microsoft, I can tell you the gap is much smaller than you think. In this video, I'll walk you through my five step system called start. That takes you from being overwhelmed to confident, even if you've never touched a single AI tool. Let's get into it. The first step in the start system is us. See what I actually does? So I'm starting here because this is where most people get stuck.

before they even begin. There's this idea floating around that AI is this deeply. technical, complicated thing that you need to understand. coding or machine learning or neural networks to use it. So here's a simplest way that I can explain it. AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini are basically prediction machines. So you give them words and they predict the most useful. next words based on everything they've been trained on.

And that's it. You type a question or request and the tool gives you its best response. There's no coding. No technical background is just a conversation. So think of it like testing a really smart friend. who happens to have read millions of books and articles. You ask them something and they give you a very thoughtful answer. And sometimes it's great. Sometimes you need to push them a little bit, but the conversation itself is actually really simple.

Now here's the other thing that really bothers people the noise. And let me know if you ever relate to this. Every week there is a new model, a new update, or a new benchmark. So one day ChatGPT is the best, and then the next day it's Claude and then it's Gemini. And it kind of feels like you can never catch up, right? But here's the thing that nobody in the AI space wants to admit. Most of that doesn't matter. The two will catch up to each other within a few weeks. The benchmarks that make headlines,

they almost never translate to a real difference in your actual day to day work. So there's a survey done by McKinsey in 2025. that found while nearly 90% of companies now use AI regularly, only 21% have actually redesigned their workflows around it. So that tells you the opportunity is still wide open for everyone. So start learning and start playing the long game. Now, before we move. on, it really helps to know which type of AI user you actually are. Because not everyone needs to learn the same things.

So most people fall into one of three path. The first one is the time saver. You're someone who just wants daily life to be easier. You want to summarize documents, draft cleaner emails, prep for meetings faster, and you're here for more time and less stress. The second one is the creator. You want to use AI to produce things faster, whether that's content, research, presentations, or ideas. So you're stacking tools to create better work in less time.

And the last one, the third one is the system builder. You want to go deeper. You want to automate workflows. Connect the different tools together. Build systems that run parts of your work for you. No matter what path you're on. That start system works for all three. And the cool part is that most people start as a time saver. and eventually naturally move on to other path as they get more comfortable. By the way, I put together a free resource called the AI playbook.

It's a five day free course. that walk you through the basics of using AI in your work, step by step. And I think it's the perfect companion course to what we're covering today. in this video. You can grab your free copy using the link. The description below, or the QR code right here. So that's the first step. Really seeing AI for what it actually is, not what the headlines make it seem. But knowing what AI is and actually using it are two very different things. So that's where most people will stall on the next steps. And let's fix that.

And step two is to try one tool today. And this is the mistake I see more than any other. Someone decides they want to learn AI. So they google best AI tools. They find a list of 50. They open ten tabs, getting really overwhelmed on where to start. And a week later, they haven't used any of them. So there's a study that came across that I found something. really interesting experience musicians. They learn new instruments much faster than complete beginners.

And the reason is that learning one instrument. that deeply trains your brain to recognize patterns and structures, and then that transfers to the next instrument and so on. So in AI tools, they work very much the same way. If you go deep on one tool first, really learning how it thinks, what's good at work struggles, every other AI tool becomes easier after that. Because the core concept are the same across all of them. So which tool should you pick? And that really depends on what you do most.

If your work is mostly writing emails, reports, creative projects. Start with Claude. Is the strongest writer right now. If you currently live in Google Workspace. so you have Gmail open docs sheets every day. Go with Gemini because it plugs right into what you already use. And if you want the most features in one place. with the biggest ecosystem, then go with ChatGPT. So they all do similar things at the core. So just don't overthink it.

Just pick one and really go deep on learning that tool. And there's one more I want to mention. If you do a lot of research, whether that's for work. for your content or just want to learn faster, try. Perplexity is an AI powered search engine that it gives you. all the answers with actual sources linked, so you can verify everything. And that's something the AI tools tend to do a lot. when they hallucinate on facts. The other tools can search the web too, but perplexity has built. in specifically for research, and it's really good at it.

So it's not a replacement for your main AI tool, but it's a really powerful companion alongside it. So here's your action step today. Give your chosen tool one real task from your actual work. Maybe summarize this document, draft this email, or help me outline this presentation. So whatever it is, use it to do an actual piece of work that you're working on right now. It's really important to go from thinking about AI. to actually using AI, and that action you take is everything.

So now you got your first tool and you're given the real task. But here's where it gets really interesting, because the way that most people talk to AI is actually holding them back. And fixing it is simpler than you think. And step three of the start system is a automate one small task. Now when I say automate, I don't mean building a complicated system. There's lots of overwhelm right now that lots of professionals are telling me. when they hear of another person on LinkedIn who's created. 20 AI agents running their work and life all for them.

You don't need that. I mean, something much more simpler than that. So find one thing that you do over and over, something that's repetitive. and a little boring. And just like I handle it, maybe is drafting. your first version of your weekly emails that you have to send out? Maybe it's summarizing your meeting notes, or maybe it could be turning. a messy brainstorm that you're doing into a clean outline. Whatever it is. Pick that one thing and make it an AI task instead of a new task all the time.

But let me show you what this actually looks like in practice, because I think that's more useful than just listing ideas for you. So here's an example. Let's say you get a long email from a client with lots of details. buried into it. Instead of reading it three times, trying to figure out what they actually need. Paste it in and just say, pull out three main requests from this email list. any deadlines mentioned, and then draft a short reply confirming. I received it, and we'll follow up by Friday. Now all that detail is done in seconds.

Or let's say you have a messy Google doc full of brainstorm. notes from your teams meeting. You can then paste into. AI and say organize these notes into three categories. Highlight the two strongest ideas and then turn them into a one page brief. I can share with my whole entire team. Now, what used to take you maybe an hour. Now takes two minutes. Here's where it gets even more powerful. Most AI tools now, they'll let you connected to the other apps that you already using directly. So you don't even need to copy and paste from one AI tool to another app.

And there is something called connectors or Model Context Protocol, or short for NPS. And it's honestly one of the most underrated feature in the AI right now. So for example, I use a tool called granola for meeting notes. And I've connected directly to Claud. So after meeting the notes, they flow straight into my AI tool. I can then say turn these into action items and add to my notion to do list. or draft a follow up email with a proposal. for the client based on what we discussed without even leaving the conversation.

And you can do the same with Google Calendar, Gmail, notion, Google Drive, and so much more. The idea is really simple. Instead of using AI in a separate window. that you have to go to, it plugs into the tools you already use. And once the connection is there, that friction drops to almost zero. To use it across all your apps. So here's why this matters. If you save just 30 minutes a day by handing one repetitive task to AI, that's 2.5 hours a week over a year, that's more than 130 hours.

That's all a small thing. That's weeks of your life back. So imagine we could do with that time. Not just to do the more strategic work that maybe only you can do, but also spending time on things that you enjoy instead of wasting on tasks. that repetitive. And here's a pro tip. that makes a huge difference, even though it's actually very small. You put the prompt where you actually do the work. If you summarize project updates every Friday, put.

a link to your prompt right inside that calendar event. If you clean up client feedback. every month, maybe drop that prompt link into your project spreadsheet. The key thing here is that you don't want to be hunting. for these problems when you actually need to use it. When the prompt is really waiting for you in that moment, you actually use it regularly. And really, what you see is that the real magic is what happens after. Once you automate one thing and see how easy it was, you start spotting opportunities everywhere. Oh, I could help with that and that and that.

And it's almost like this flipping switches in your brain. Because also things are looking for opportunities. But just start with one and get that win and start building from there. Speaking of using AI tools, in my own workflows, I've been trying out this tool to help me with designing. not just my presentations, which I do daily, but also now. as a design engine for all of my graphics and that tools gamma. So gamma just launched a feature called Gamma Imagine. and is a perfect example of what we're talking about in this video.

It's an AI designed tool built right into gamma. Instead of opening a separate design. tool, searching for templates, or asking a designer for help, you can just describe the visual you want and gamma will generate it for you. Whether that's could be infographics, diagrams, social graphics, posters, or presentation visuals, all from a very simple description in gamma margin. So I've been using it. when I needed a visual for a presentation or maybe a social post. And the thing I love most about it is that it really helps me. explore my creative directions.

Now I would have come up with on my own. So for example, like this infographic which allow me to explain. a very complex concept into something simple to understand and then ask gamma. Imagine to create this infographic explaining AI automation. And these are the variations that are generated for me. It honestly feels like having an AI design partner sitting. right next to me to brainstorm ideas that wouldn't have thought of on my own. And Gamma Imagine is now available to all gamma users. By the time this video is live,

I'll drop the link in the description so you can try it for yourself. It's just one of those tools where you type an idea and think, wait, that's it. That's all I have to do. So give it a try and let me know what you have created with this tool. All right, let's get back to the start system. So now you've got a tool. You used it for real work. And you also made it your first small task. But here's the part that most people skip. And it's honestly the difference between someone who dabbles. with AI occasionally and someone who gets generally created it over time. So step four is are refine your process.

And here's what nobody tells you about AI. The first result you get is almost never the best result. And that's completely normal. It doesn't mean the tool is broken. It doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It just means that I need more from you. or that you can iterate and get better results. And honestly, this happens. every time I'm demoing a feature or tool in a live AI workshop. So it literally happens to everyone. And this is the biggest mindset shift that I wanted to make. When the output isn't great.

The problem usually isn't the AI is the input is what you give it to work with. And now I see it as just another fun problem to solve. So there's a really simple structure that I teach my clients. that makes everything better. And I call it the ACR system. So aim context and rules. So aim is what you want the AI to do. Be really specific not write something about productivity, but write a 300 word summary of three morning routines for busy parents. So context isn't the background information.

Who is this for? What's the situation? What tone do you want? What is your voice? And rules are the constraints. Keep it under 200 words. Maybe use simple language. Format it as a number list or show me this as a database, for example. So when you give AI those three things, the output jumps. from something very generic to something that's really useful. But here's an even more powerful technique. So instead of trying to give AI the perfect instructions up front,

flip it around, tell the AI what you need, and then you can say, ask me the questions you need to get this right. So now you're letting the AI pull. the information from you instead of you trying to push everything in. And this works really well because the AI will often. ask for things that you didn't even think to include. It fills in the gaps that you didn't know that were there. And I think here's the one more thing that makes a huge difference. Go into your AI tools settings and fill in the About You section.

So most tools will have this by now. ChatGPT calls it custom instructions and Claude has a profile. and preferences area and gender has something similar to in the settings. So you tell your name, your role, the kind of work that you do. and how you like responses formatted and any context that comes up often. So do this once and really every single conversation out of that. It starts with the AI really knowing who you are. And there's no more generic answers.

So no more explain yourself every single time. It takes five minutes to set it up and it changes every interaction. from that point onwards. And there's one more thing on refining. If you find a prompt that works really well on something that you do regularly. Always save it. Because the biggest reason that people stop using. AI isn't that it doesn't work, is that there's a friction of typing out. a really good prompt every single time, and they're just too much, right? So again, the habit. of collecting really useful prompts that gives you the output that you want.

And here's a really cool way to do this. It's very, very practical. Get a free text expander tool like text plays. So it's a Chrome extension that also works on Mac and Windows. And you can save your best prompts into snippets. and give each one a short keyword. So instead of typing out your whole prompt every single time, you just type something like forward slash, summarize. or forward slash email and the full prompts appears instantly. So I use this a lot constantly on my own AI tools. It takes what used to be a two minute setup of typing everything else.

and turns into two seconds. And that tiny reduction in friction. That's all the difference in between using AI once in a while. and using it 20 times a day in your regular workflow. All right, so now you see what I does. You try to eliminate a task and you know how to refine your results. There's one more step. And honestly, that might be the most important one. And the final step is T. And that is teach it to someone. So this might sound surprising the video about learning AI, but the fastest way.

in my experience, unlocking any skill it's explaining to someone else. When you teach something. You're forced to organize your thinking. You find all the gaps in your own understanding, right? So you go from I kind of get it to I really get it. So show a colleague at work how you use AI to draft a report. Maybe work a friend through how you summarize a long article in 30s, or share a tip in your team's chat post about it on LinkedIn.

So you don't have to be an expert to teach you just to be that one step ahead. And I feel like if you made it this far in the video, you already are. And here's a bonus that you might not even expect. So when you become the person in your circle. who understands AI better, your opportunities are to find you. People come to you with questions your manager notices. I have a friend who essentially carved out entire role for herself. and is now leading the AI initiatives our company. So clients will see you differently.

And teaching doesn't just help you learn. It builds your reputation as someone who is curious. And we just get it. Now, you might be wondering, how do I keep up with all of this after the video ends? So here's my simple system. I recommend this highly subscribe to 1 or 2 good AI newsletters. and here are the ones that I recommend checking you out. that can send you a copy in your inbox daily. And over time, you find the ones that you like to read. To get your latest download on what's working and what's not. People whose job it is to really filter out all that noise.

and they'll tell you what actually matters. So spend 5 to 10 minutes a day just scanning those updates in your inbox, and that's it for you. AI content consumption. And you get to keep it under control, rather than being really overwhelmed. of seeing every single thing on your social feed. And then once a week, block out 30 minutes to experiment with one thing you read about. Maybe it's a useful workflow, maybe try a new feature, test a new technique. So that's cycle learning a little, then do a little and repeat it. every single week. Is honestly going to stay current without feeling overwhelmed.

And here's what I want you to know. You're not behind. A year from now, most people will still be saying. they need to get around to learning AI, but not you. Because you showed up today. You watched this video and now you have a plan. and the person you're becoming isn't defined by when you start it. It's defined by the fact that you started at all. And that really starts with something small. So open that AI to give it a real task. and save those 30 minutes a week and then share what you learned.

Because you don't need to have it all figured out. You just need to begin. I'm Lori, and thank you for being here. If you found this helpful, don't forget to subscribe for more videos like this. And if you want to keep going, you might enjoy this video right here. While I go deeper into the AI tools that I use on every single day. I'll see you in the next one.