AI Fluency: stop surfing launches and learn the language

Confession: those of us who use AI are making it up as we go, too. And anyone who says otherwise is lying.
It's 9 p.m. on a Friday. I have a gazillion tabs open with stuff that came out last week that I still haven't tried. Today I hooked my Manus assistant up to Telegram because Andres Bustamante got me hooked. I found a Claude feature that didn't exist on Monday. And I'm pretty sure something new dropped while I was writing this.

Just this week: Claude launched Skills for Word, Excel and PDF. Perplexity released Computer. Google relaunched Flow. OpenAI consolidated GPT-5.4. OpenClaw was bought by OpenAI. Phew.

26 announcements. 7 companies. 18 days. And this wasn't an exceptional month. We're barely a little over 2 months into the year!!.

These days, taking a course thinking you need to know "how to use" a tool today is like buying the stuff in the grocery store's clearance aisle that expires in two days. Sure, you got a deal. But once those 2 days are up, it's going in the trash..

What almost all of us are doing, I call AI Surfing: jumping from wave to wave, chasing the latest launch, always showing up one step late. It's exhausting. And it's a trap with no way out, because the next wave is always bigger — but it's also the only way in: trying, screwing up, winning....

But there's a concept called AI Fluency — and I think it's exactly where we should be heading. It's not about learning commands or pressing buttons. It's about learning the language. With a few loose phrases you survive the airport. With the language you can get around any city, with any model.

I got here by breaking things, asking the wrong questions and getting it wrong every single day. Did it work? I'm building things that a year ago I didn't even know were possible.

No course covers 26 announcements in 18 days. The only thing that prepares you is knowing how to think.
Stop surfing. Learn to speak the language.

P.S. While I was writing this the news broke — Google Maps is going to integrate Gemini. Fresh out of the oven. That makes 27 + the ones I missed....