📝 Witnessing the AI transformation

I haven’t written much in the last few years. Ironically, my last set of writing notes was about learning to code and understanding Swift and Apple’s application frameworks.

Over the last two years, I’ve watched artificial intelligence (AI) move from a subject of discussion to a transformative technology that’s increasingly shaping our world. Its influence is already being felt in politics, the economy, and our social interactions.

AI is gaining a foothold in our daily lives, with phenomenal adoption in chatbots and productivity tools. More importantly, I see AI rapidly changing the relationship between people, knowledge, software, and work. It has the potential to change not just how quickly we do things, but also what individuals can accomplish, how companies compete, how society operates, and what it means to work in the technology industry. We are already seeing AI change how we learn, create, solve problems, and participate in the world around us.

In his essay The Age of AI Has Begun, Bill Gates opens with a simple but powerful observation:

“Artificial intelligence is as revolutionary as mobile phones and the Internet.”

It’s quite something to live through these times, having witnessed the rise of personal computers, followed by the impact of the Internet and mobile phones over the past few decades.

I use AI every day. Today’s models are remarkably capable when it comes to writing code, explaining unfamiliar systems, debugging problems, and accelerating projects and prototypes I might never have attempted before. In the right circumstances, AI is an excellent thought partner, helping me learn faster, explore ideas, and get more done.

As Steve Jobs once put it:

“What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”

In many ways, AI feels like the personal computer era all over again. I see the same potential for a fundamental shift in what individuals can do with technology. AI is a new general-purpose technology, something that can be applied across industries and domains rather than being limited to a single purpose. And we’re only getting started.

Beyond what AI can already do, it feels as though we’re collectively building toward something much bigger: a future that brings together and amplifies the infrastructure, information, and capabilities of the modern world. We’re likely to see entirely new kinds of tools and experiences: personal digital assistants, specialized AI agents, and a new foundational platform for how we think, work, learn, and make decisions about our lives.

There’s far more to say about AI than I can put into words right now. Perhaps that’s a subject for another day.

Buckle up. It’s going to be interesting, no matter what you think about it.