🪬 HumanAI #013 – The Big Onboarding

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Next Wednesday I turn 37.

And as birthdays do, this one’s got me reflecting.

Especially since becoming a dad, I’ve found myself thinking a lot more about the future, about the world my daughter will grow up in, and the forces that will shape it.

Lately, I keep coming back to one thing:
AI won’t just be a tool in her world.
It’ll be the platform everything is built on… work, creativity, relationships, even how we think and make decisions.

That realization hit me hard.
Not with fear, but with urgency.

Because what happens over the next two years won’t just shape my future… it’ll shape hers. And yours too.

Today’s edition is about that future.

It’s about what’s coming, and what you can do to stay ahead of it.

I call this window in time “The Big Onboarding”.

Heads up: This edition’s a bit more big-picture than usual.
But trust me… it’s a perspective you’ll want before diving into more tools.
Don’t worry, I still packed a practical use case in there too.

Let’s get into it:

We are living through the fastest technology shift humanity has ever seen.
Faster than the internet. Faster than the smartphone.
Billions of people are about to cross a line without realizing it.

I’ve named this moment: The Big Onboarding.

And the next 24 months will decide who thrives, and who spends the next decade catching up.

Don’t panic. I’ll show you exactly how to start so you’re not left behind.

We’ve Seen This Before

In 2007, when the iPhone launched, most people shrugged.

A touchscreen? No keyboard? Looked like a toy.

Two years later, everyone had one. It didn’t just change how we texted or browsed the web. It changed how we lived.

That tipping point, when a tool stops being a curiosity for the few and becomes the default for everyone, happens only a handful of times in history.

🔌 Electricity: At first, used only in factories. Onboarding brought it to homes, lighting up the world.

💻 Personal Computers: “Why would I need a computer at home?” Until onboarding taught people spreadsheets, word processing, and games.

📡 The Internet: Early websites were ugly and clunky. People mocked it as a fad… until onboarding brought email, Google, and social media to everyone.

✉️ Email: Once considered “too complicated” for the average person. Then onboarding made it the default way humans communicate at work.

📱 Smartphones: In the 2000s, most people didn’t see the point. Then onboarding gave us apps, maps, cameras, and the entire internet in our pocket.

AI is next.

The Invisible Stampede

The numbers are impossible to ignore:

• In the U.S., 34% of adults have already used ChatGPT. For those under 30, it’s 58%.

• In the workplace, adoption is accelerating even faster: Microsoft and LinkedIn report 75% of knowledge workers already use AI at work… most of them without waiting for permission.

• McKinsey finds 78% of organizations now use AI in at least one business function. Gartner projects over 80% of enterprises will use generative AI by 2026.

This isn’t gradual. It’s not hype.

It’s a bottom-up revolution, one human at a time.

The Migration AI Is Forcing Upon Us

When the Ice Age hit, animals faced a brutal choice:
❄️ Stay where they were and freeze.
🌿 Or migrate to warmer, greener lands.

Some moved early. They found food, shelter, and survived.

Others stayed behind, hoping the cold would pass.

It didn’t.

Every era of history has these migration moments.

Each one forced people to move, adapt, and onboard to a new way of living.

AI is our next migration.

Why It Matters

Right now the world is splitting into two groups:

• The onboarded. People who fold AI into their daily life. They use it to write emails, plan their week, summarize reports, brainstorm ideas, debug code. They’re not experts—they’re explorers—but every day they’re compounding an advantage.

• The not-yet. People who dabble, try a prompt or two, and walk away unimpressed. They conclude “it doesn’t really work” and stick to old habits.

The gap is widening.

Studies show AI isn’t just a toy. It’s leverage:

• Microsoft WTI: Workers using AI save 30+ minutes per day and report higher creativity.

• MIT & Stanford: a generative AI assistant boosted support agents’ productivity by 14% overall, and 34% for juniors.

• Harvard Business School: consultants using GPT-4 completed tasks 25% faster, with higher quality.

• GitHub Copilot: developers code 55% faster, with companies seeing double-digit productivity gains across teams.

Those who migrate early will find leverage, speed, and resilience.

Those who stay put, waiting for things to “settle down”, will discover the cold doesn’t pass.

The Two-Year Window

Here’s the part people miss: the window is short.

Smartphones took almost a decade to move from novelty to necessity.

AI is collapsing that curve into just two years.

By 2026, AI won’t be optional. It will be as normal as email.

Which means the next 24 months are decisive.

If you onboard now, you’ll ride the wave.

If you don’t, you’ll spend the next decade catching up.

How to Start Onboarding (Right Now)

The good news? Onboarding doesn’t mean mastering every tool or becoming an AI engineer.
It means picking one part of your daily routine and making AI handle it.

Here’s a simple, repeatable way to begin:

👉 Use AI as your daily planner.

Step 1. Paste your to-do list or calendar mess into ChatGPT (or any AI you trust).

Step 2. Ask:

Here’s everything on my plate today/tomorrow. Organize it into a realistic schedule that balances work, personal life, and rest. 
Prioritize the top 3 tasks that will move me forward.  
[Paste your tasks here]  

Step 2 — Get your tailored plan.
AI gives you a clear, hour-by-hour breakdown → like a personal chief of staff in your pocket.

Step 3 — Iterate.
Ask: “Now shorten this into a 3-bullet summary I can check on my phone.”

Step 4 — Lock it in.
Copy it into your notes/calendar → you now have a realistic plan, built in 2 minutes instead of 2 hours.

Do that once, and you’re onboarded.
Do it daily, and you’ll never go back.

That’s onboarding.
Not “learning AI theory.”
Not “watching hype videos.”
But using AI to make life easier, right now, in a way you can repeat every day.

The Big Onboarding Has Begun

One day soon, this will feel obvious.
But from the middle, it feels messy, debatable, optional.
That’s why most people will hesitate.

They will stay frozen, sceptical, scrolling headlines.

The ones who won’t… the ones experimenting, stumbling, and learning now… will have compounding advantages that everyone else will only see in hindsight.

The Big Onboarding is not coming.
It’s here.

The question is simple:
When the history books look back on this moment, will you be one of the onboarded… or one of the left behind?

🎁 A Birthday Gift for You

As I said, next Wednesday I turn 37.

But instead of me getting presents, I’m flipping it… I’ve got a gift for you.

I’ll be running a free 90-minute “AI for Leaders” onboarding session exclusively for my subscribers.

Think of it as a 90-minute shortcut to sharpen up, future-proof your skills, and finally make AI useful in your real work and life.

👉 Register your interest here

Seats are limited, but if you’ve read this far… you’re exactly the kind of person I want in the room.

Okay, enough rant…

As always… Stay active, stay sharp.

Mencho
🪬

P.S.
70% of leaders aren’t using AI. Will you lead the shift — or perish?

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