Learning AI by using it.

Then I started using it to build.

One of the first big changes came when I started using AI to build my real estate website, Zen Realty.

That connected with something much older for me. I had been trying to build websites in one form or another for roughly 26 years.

I started with Microsoft FrontPage. Later came Wix. At one point I tried WordPress and never really got comfortable with it.

Then AI changed the experience completely.

Suddenly I could sit with WordPress, describe what I wanted, work through problems, change layouts, rewrite sections and actually build the thing I had in my head.

Then it became a way to think.

At the same time, I was using AI to organize ideas for what eventually became this site.

For a couple of months I had been collecting thoughts, asking questions, developing themes and slowly figuring out what I wanted to write about.

AI had become more than something I occasionally asked questions. It had become part of the way I was learning, organizing ideas and figuring things out.

Then one Saturday, several things came together.

A friend of mine showed us an AI voice agent she had been working with called Valentina.

She had used it in connection with inviting around 100 people to a large business summit. The reaction was strong. One prominent businessman was impressed enough that he asked my friend to call his brother because he was convinced he would be interested in seeing it too.

Then I talked to Valentina myself.

As a simulation, she called me and invited me to an event.

It was a simple interaction. But when the call ended, I was almost speechless.

Shocked. Fascinated. And unable to stop thinking about what I had just heard.

That same night, I decided to learn.

I wanted to understand AI as deeply as I reasonably could.

I could see there was a real business here. A real market. A real need.

Before I could do any of that seriously, I needed to learn.

I needed to be able to explain AI in simple terms, in anecdotal terms, tell stories and make it easy for people to relate to what the technology could actually do.

So I went back to the beginning.

I had already created several articles in collaboration with my AI coach, learning quickly, following different ideas and using those conversations to help me organize what I was seeing.

But eventually I realized I wanted something deeper.

So I started a more deliberate learning process with my AI coach from scratch — working through the fundamentals step by step, understanding how the pieces fit together and gradually developing a stronger mental model of what AI actually is and what it can do.

I’m learning in public.

I’m testing things, building things, meeting more people, asking questions and trying to understand the technology well enough to explain it clearly and connect it to real situations.

Part of the goal is to understand where things stand today.

Another part is to develop enough context to recognize where things may be heading next — so I can eventually help people understand what is happening now and prepare for what may be coming.

And a lot of that learning is going to end up here.

Some articles will come from things I’m building or testing. Some will come from conversations and people I meet. Others will come directly from the lessons I’m working through with my AI coach.

These articles are the record of that learning process.

I’m basically putting the notebook on the table as I go.

The structured learning path.

This is where I’m going back to the fundamentals and building my understanding step by step with my AI coach.

These articles follow that learning process step by step.

News, observations and everything else.

This is the broader stream — articles about AI companies, tools, developments, business ideas and whatever else catches my attention.