The simplest way to keep up with AI

Less reading, more doing. Here's the minimalist plan.

Keeping up with the AIs

The one mailbag Q we got asked multiple times was how best to keep up with AI. So today I'm sharing my minimalist advice, which basically boils down to:

Most people spend 80%+ of their AI learning time reading & talking about AI and less than 20% experimenting with it. Reverse that ratio.

Here are your basic steps:

1) Read the newsletter or updates pages for your primary AI, and don't worry about reading about AI elsewhere. Again, this is the minimalist plan, not the most you could do. You should be automatically subscribed simply because you are a user, but if you are no longer subscribed you can resubscribe (in some cases) or visit their updates page about once a month on your own schedule. Here are the key links to the release pages for the major AIs:

Claude | ChatGPT | Copilot | Gemini

2) If a release looks potentially valuable, read the notes on it. If they aren't hyperlinked in the email, you can generally find them by searching "[Feature name] + documentation." They will tell you the key aspects of that release, as well as a couple of intended use cases for it. After reading it, you should have a basic understanding of how the feature works and a refined sense of whether it's valuable enough to explore. You can also check the relevant feature pages for your AI:

Claude | ChatGPT | Copilot | Gemini is fragmented, just recommend search.

3) If a release still looks valuable, experiment with that feature. Even a low-stakes test will tell you more than reading another article will. If you're part of an org, a shared Slack or Teams channel for these experiments means not everyone has to do this independently—you can build on what each other uncovers.

When you're mostly reading about AI, every new release feels like another thing you're behind on. When you're mostly experimenting with it and then you read a piece, you think, 'Oh, that's an example of something I've seen." You stop drowning in AI news and start recognizing it.