Don't just use AI. Build with it.

Most conversations about AI still seem to begin with tools. Which model are you using? Which image generator is best? Which chatbot writes better copy?

Those questions are useful, but they are not the part that interests me most.

I am much more interested in what happens after you open the tool.

AI can draft text, generate an image, analyse information or help write code. But the real value appears when those capabilities become part of a larger idea: a product, a workflow, an accessible experience or something that previously would have been difficult for one person to create.

That is what I mean when I say: don't just use AI. Build with it.

Building with AI does not mean accepting everything it produces. Quite the opposite. It means directing it, questioning it, testing it and combining it with your own judgement. Sometimes the first output is useful. Sometimes it is completely wrong. The skill is knowing the difference.

I use AI across coding, design, research, writing, prototyping and accessibility thinking. What excites me is not replacing those disciplines. It is being able to move between them more freely.

An idea can move from a rough thought to a prototype much faster than it could before. That changes who gets to experiment. You do not necessarily need a large team before you can test whether something deserves to exist.

There is also a danger here. Speed can produce a lot of average work very quickly. AI makes it easier to generate, but generating is not the same as designing. Taste, context, lived experience and purpose become even more important when the tools can produce endless possibilities.

For me, AI is most interesting when it gives people more agency: more ways to make, communicate, explore and solve problems.

Use the tools. Learn what they can do. But then move past the demo.

Build something.