Same Technology, Different Entry Point: Teaching AI to Adults vs. Kids

It’s no surprise that we need to teach adults to use AI differently than we teach our kids. But at first, with my teams at work, I was starting in the same place I start when teaching kids how to use AI.

I began with the bigger picture.

“Think about all the possibilities.”
“Start with the big idea.”

But then I had the opportunity to spend a few days in New York City teaching executives how to use GenAI productivity tools. And I didn’t start with a big idea. I started with relief.

These people are overwhelmed.

Too many emails. Too many tabs open (both on screen and in the brain). They need solutions that save them time. That make their day easier. Then, later, they can get to that big idea.

And it’s not just executives. Parents are overwhelmed. Teachers are overwhelmed. Adults, in general, are overwhelmed.

Do you know who’s not crunched for time?

Who has curiosity without urgency?

Kids.

The AI native gap

When I was in NYC, it hit me. Executive and professionals are learning to be AI native right now, as adults, while managing everything else in their lives. That’s a lot.

But my kids? They’re growing up with AI. Even my colleagues’ older, teenaged kids, they’ve grown up tech native so the stretch to AI native is much shorter.

What this means for how we teach them

With professionals (particularly executives), I start more tactical: “Here’s how to get through your emails faster.” “Want to summarize all of your emails from last week?” “Need to do a quick competitive scan?”

With them, the framework is: Efficiency → Understanding → Exploration.

With kids, it’s the reverse: Exploration → Understanding → Efficiency (eventually, when they need that sort of thing).

This is why my Idea → AI → Play framework exists. Kids don't need AI to solve a time problem. They just sometimes want a way to bridge the gap between what they can imagine and what they can actually create.

Kids have endless imagination. What they often lack is the ability to execute on it. They can come up with lyrics, but can't yet compose the music. AI lets them create at the speed of their ideas instead of waiting years to develop the technical skills to execute them.

Teach them how to use it correctly, now

How we learn the power of AI will most likely be very different than how we use it with our kids. We don’t want them to just see it as a tool to outsource thinking or only for efficiency. We want them fluent in AI for creation.

Subsequently, that’s where we want to be as adults, but we’re getting there using a different route.

For kids, we want to teach them now, while their brains are still building the pathways for how to think and create.

The executives in New York were trying to find time. My kids are trying to see if they can bring dinosaurs back to life, write piano music from feelings, and create stories that turn into costumes.

Same technology, Completely different entry point.

Your turn

If you're feeling behind on AI because you're trying to learn it while managing everything else, it’s because you are. You're doing the hard version.

Our kids? They get to do the easy version. They get to play with this before they have to perform with it.

So let them explore. Let them spend time with AI, not save it. Let them be weird and creative and inefficient with it.

Because by the time they need to use AI for productivity, they'll already know how to use it for possibility.