Every once in a while, a technology comes along that changes what’s possible.
The printing press did it. The internet did it. I believe artificial intelligence is going to do it again.
What amazes me isn’t just what AI can do today—it’s what it makes possible for ordinary people. For most of human history, our progress was limited by what we knew, who we knew, and the experiences we accumulated over a lifetime. We learned from our parents, our teachers, our mentors, and the people around us. If no one in your circle had solved a particular problem, you often had to spend years figuring it out yourself.
Today, we have access to an incredible amount of human knowledge and reasoning tools that can help us think through problems, challenge assumptions, and explore solutions in seconds. It’s difficult to overstate how extraordinary that is.
But I’ve also come to believe that AI isn’t the competitive advantage people think it is.
The competitive advantage is the person using it.
AI doesn’t replace excellence. It multiplies it.
If you’re curious, AI allows you to learn faster than ever before. If you’re disciplined, it helps you accomplish more in less time. If you’re committed to serving your customers well, it helps you design better systems, communicate more effectively, and make more informed decisions.
At the same time, it can also amplify mediocrity.
If your goal is simply to get by, AI can help you do that too. It can write the email you didn’t want to think through. It can summarize the book you didn’t want to read. It can produce content you never wrestled with yourself. It can help you meet the minimum standard with even less effort.
That’s the path I think many people will choose.
Not because AI made them average, but because it magnified habits they already had.
I’ve made a conscious decision to use AI differently.
I don’t want it to think for me. I want it to think with me.
When I write, I want the ideas to be mine. AI helps me organize them, challenge weak arguments, refine my writing, and occasionally point out blind spots that I hadn’t considered. In my construction business, it helps me evaluate options, build systems, improve communication, and solve problems more efficiently. But none of that replaces the responsibility to think critically or make good decisions.
If anything, AI has made me realize that human judgment has become even more valuable.
The people who thrive over the next decade won’t simply be the ones who adopt AI. Everyone will adopt AI. The winners will be the people who combine curiosity, discipline, integrity, and a relentless commitment to excellence with one of the most powerful tools humanity has ever created.
That’s why I don’t see AI as a shortcut.
I see it as a multiplier.
It will magnify our strengths.
It will expose our weaknesses.
And in the end, it won’t replace the habits that create excellence.
It will simply make those habits more powerful than they’ve ever been before.