The future's here - it's just not evenly distributed.

1 in 4 people don't have access to clean water in their home according to the WHO.

26% of people don't have access to the internet.

And 16 - 20% of the global population use Generative AI regularly.

There's a hype cycle, but population-wise, AI is still emerging. And that matters because privately, business leaders tell me they've barely touched a tool like ChatGPT, let alone thought about what it means for their organisation. They're signing off AI policies without much context. And their tech vendors are pushing AI chatbots without the domain knowledge to know whether a chatbot would actually help.

Meanwhile, when I ask people what they actually use AI for day-to-day, the answers are consistent: Conditional formatting in Excel. Comparing two documents. Rewriting an email to sound more or less of [insert attitude here].

"Just play around with it" isn't the answer either. These tools, Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, are friendly in tone but not user-friendly when it comes to knowing how to use them well. They're flexible, which can be overwhelming. And because they're generative rather than logical, they'll attempt any task and produce output regardless, leaving you to work out if what you got is what you needed.

The missing ingredient is a foundation. Sixty minutes or less of the right things in the right order and you stop guessing.

Let me know on the goldilocks scale if this worked for you: too fast, too slow, just right.

And if you'd find something similar for another tool useful, say the word.

Helen