Practical ways to learn, test, and apply fast-moving tools.
Artificial intelligence is changing fast, every day. Just when you think you have it all figured out, something new comes along. It can make the smartest leaders feel like they’re living the nightmare where you have a test but missed class or can’t find the room.
We asked our Inc. Leadership Forum members how they stay educated on AI developments. These tips from 21 of them may help you manage your AI learning curve and anxiety that can come with it.
I have two moves to stay educated on AI. First, I made a TikTok account that follows only AI creators. AI developments float past me daily whether I’m looking or not—the exposure piles up unconsciously. Second, I write an AI newsletter, mostly as an excuse to stay near the topic: If I have to write about AI, I have to read about it. Creating an obligation to publish is the most reliable way I’ve found to stay educated on AI. — Kayode Faturoti, Breet
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The growth of AI is immense
The growth of AI is immense. I focus on developments related to how I might want to leverage AI in my business and what we see and hear from our customers who want to use AI. Narrowing my scope helps me better filter and manage the information overload. The hype and drama of the super-scalers, for example, is almost irrelevant compared with how our customer can integrate specific services. — Allen Falcon, Cumulus Global
You need to stay curious. Artificial intelligence is developing in front of all of us at a faster pace than almost any technology before it. Anyone who thinks they fully understand where it is going is fooling themselves. The industry is also filled with noise, driven by different ambitions, incentives, and levels of understanding. The real discipline is knowing what to pay attention to. Not every update matters. Not every tool changes the work. To me, staying in the loop is about filtering the noise and focusing on what matters. Constantly asking myself what actually changes for the people around me, my team, and the work itself. — Goran Paun, ArtVersion
4. Treat it as a working tool and test it
I treat AI as a working tool, not a topic to study from the sidelines. Every week my team and I try to automate one real task or client deliverable with AI, then evaluate what it got right and wrong. I also have an AI expert in my own family who’s basically my cheat code. He cuts through the jargon and helps me apply new developments directly to my work faster than any newsletter could. — Tiffany Whitlow, Acclinate
I treat AI the way I treat any
I treat AI the way I treat any tool that is reshaping how people work, which means I stay curious and hands-on rather than watching from a distance. I use the tools in my own day-to-day work. I recently took a course on how to build an AI chatbot because I wanted to understand this technology from the inside—not just as someone using it. I follow a handful of trusted voices that cut through the hype, and I talk with the younger professionals in my network who often adopt new tools before the rest of us do. I keep learning from the people already living in that future. — Christie Garton, 1,000 Dreams Fund
6. Test new tools in real workflows
The pace of change in AI, and especially in agentic AI, has been remarkable over the past few months. New models, capabilities, and use cases are emerging quickly. My team and I stay current through hands-on testing in real workflows. Both of my companies use AI agents across multiple teams, which has shown us where AI creates value, where it falls short, and what level of human oversight is needed. Whenever a new model or tool is released, our teams test it and assess whether it can improve our existing processes. The key is to experiment early, learn continuously, and adapt quickly. — Michael Podolsky, PissedConsumer.com
I realized the trust gap with my team came from leadership, including me, treating AI as a generic productivity tool, while employees experienced something very different in their way of working. I needed to personally understand how AI can supercharge our organization. I signed up for a six-week course to learn how to build agents myself. I then built a strategic advisor, a chief-of-staff memory agent, and a communications agent tuned to my actual decision patterns and voice, and I committed 20 employees to the same program with weekly learning sessions. — Maria Colacurcio, Syndio
8. Learn one well, then repeat with another
Pick one tool, use it until you understand
Pick one tool, use it until you understand what it gets wrong, then repeat. Reading about AI feels productive. The actual education is the moment it fails you in a specific, instructive way. — Susanne Norwitz, Maya Chia
9. Make it a leadership discipline
I believe AI literacy is a leadership discipline, not a side project. We embedded AI engineers inside our teams. I even had an AI clone deliver my remarks on a recent earnings call to prove the technology’s readiness and our belief in its capabilities. The fastest way to understand where AI is headed is to both personally, and as a company, utilize the tools, not just watch from the sidelines. — Sam Sidhu, Customers Bank
10. Treat learning about AI as an ongoing responsibility
Artificial intelligence is transforming nearly every industry, so I view learning about AI as an ongoing responsibility. I regularly engage with scientific literature, technology leaders, industry conferences, and multidisciplinary collaborations to understand both its capabilities and its limitations. The future belongs to organizations that embrace AI as a tool to enhance human potential—not replace it. — Dr. Christina Rahm, DRC Ventures
11. Develop the human system around AI
I stay educated by working where AI meets
I stay educated by working where AI meets the human system, not by chasing every model release. My interest is in what the technology does to trust, decision-making, and how teams relate under pressure. I learn from the organizations navigating that transition in real time. I read, test tools directly, and stay in conversation with people building on the technical side. But I hold it through my own lens: The hard part of AI integration is rarely the technology. It is the human system around it. — Elena Armijo, The C-Suite Collective®
12. Focus on how it can enhance human connection
I tune out the theoretical hype. Instead, I focus on AI through a strictly operational lens: How can this tool eliminate friction or add concrete value for our clients and owners? And I’m always reading cross-industry case studies and encouraging our internal teams to run low-risk pilots. We test AI tools for tasks like data analytics and route optimization, keeping the focus entirely on how technology can enhance human connection. — Adam Povlitz, Anago Cleaning Systems
I learn the most from watching where our systems fail. A missed pallet or a misread barcode tells me something no roadmap discussion will. Our customers are usually living the next problem before we’ve even named it. There are also a few people and organizations I follow to stay up to date, like Andrej Karpathy, Anthropic, Yann LeCun, and fellow AI startup leaders from Bain, Carnegie Mellon, etc. — Sankalp Arora, PhD, Gather AI
14. Build a panel of early adopters
Stay informed by building an informal panel
Stay informed by building an informal panel of early adopters, innovators, customers, and industry experts who naturally see change before others. Meet with a few of them each quarter over lunch or coffee to understand what they are seeing, experimenting with, and worried about. These conversations often reveal emerging trends, changing customer expectations, and new opportunities long before they appear in reports or headlines. — Erik Musalem, Evolve Grow
15. Study trends and test new tools
I treat AI like any major shift in business—by learning continuously and applying it where it creates real value. Each week, I study industry trends, test new AI tools, and learn from other business leaders. I don’t see AI as a replacement for people but as a force multiplier that helps teams work smarter, make better decisions, and deliver better results. The winners will be those who integrate AI into their operations with purpose, not just chase the latest trends. — Brad Burns, Burns Companies
Learn by doing is the first thing that comes to mind. That means moving away from searching on Google or Edge or other browsers and replacing them every single time with your own AI. This more easily allows you to continually become a partner in working with AI and learning as you go. If you’re not already interacting with AI on a daily basis, you’re falling behind. And the more you work with it, the better you get, the more you know, and the more you succeed. — Scott Schwefel, Discover Yourself
17. Listen to respected voices
It’s no secret that most of us get
It’s no secret that most of us get our news from social media platforms. For me, it’s Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. There are voices on these platforms that carry more weight than others. I focus on the leaders in the world of digital marketing that I respect when they share their points of view on AI. Additionally, as soon as a new AI technology makes it onto my radar, I jump to adopt and test it in my workflow. I like to have hands-on experience with the platforms as a consumer, so I can be knowledgeable enough to speak to the experience as an initial user. — Lindsay Donnelly, Authentic Community Marketing
I treat AI like any other major business tool: I study it, test it and look for where it can actually improve results. I read, I listen to people who are using it intelligently, and most importantly, I have my team test practical applications inside the business. Can it help us move faster? Can it help our clients get better results from the marketing we do for them? Can it reduce repetitive work without lowering quality? That’s what I care about. I don’t need to chase every new AI headline, but I do want to understand which developments can genuinely help small businesses compete and grow. — Joy Gendusa, PostcardMania
19. Check with existing technology partners
Staying informed on AI developments requires continuous learning and curiosity. New AI technologies and applications emerge constantly, making it essential to monitor industry trends, evaluate new tools, and understand how they can improve your business. It’s equally important to stay current on the AI capabilities being introduced by your existing technology partners and platforms, ensuring you maximize the value of the tools you already use while identifying opportunities to drive greater efficiency, innovation, and competitive advantage. — Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne Advertising
20. Train yourself and your employees
I have taken two programs through the Harvard
I have taken two programs through the Harvard Data Science Initiative on creating AI agents for my company. For the last year and a half, I have been mentoring and training my employees on how to use AI in their role. We all share how we use it and learn from each other as well. — Natasha Miller, Entire Productions
AI is moving so quickly that staying educated requires both structure and curiosity. We created a cross-functional AI task force that meets regularly to monitor developments and opportunities. Personally, I also watch what is being discussed and amplified across social platforms to understand where attention, adoption, and concern are moving. — Brian Klais, URLgenius
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