Are you anxious about AI? Nvidia’s co-founder and CEO has some tips for how to find your feet in this new landscape.

If, during the past few years, you’ve felt like the future is barreling towards you like an oncoming train, you are not alone. The shock (and stock market dip) that accompanied last week’s announcement of a cheaper AI model from Chinese company DeepSeek shows that even experts can be blindsided by how fast tech innovation is happening. No one can take away that feeling of whiplash completely. Change is happening too fast for that. But if you’re looking for a good guide to help you get a handle on our AI-filled future, entrepreneur Jensen Huang should probably be at the top of your list. Huang is the CEO of Nvidia, maker of the chips driving the current AI boom. He built Nvidia into a $3-billion juggernaut by spotting the imminent rise of AI before just about anyone else and betting his company on it. Other tech CEOs fawn over his vision. What does Huang see for the future? Perhaps more importantly for entrepreneurs, how does he recommend you prepare? Huang: AI is like the interstate highway system That was the topic of conversation when Huang appeared on Cleo Abram’s Huge Conversations podcast recently. It’s an hour-long discussion, and if you’re fascinated by AI, then the whole thing is worth a watch. (I’ve embedded the complete interview at the end of this column.) Perhaps the most immediately actionable insight was Huang’s advice for everyday people wondering how best to prepare themselves for the coming AI revolution. On the podcast, Huang likens the change to the shift that arrived when the U.S. built the interstate highway system. Fast roads were the essential new technology at the heart of this change, but a whole ecosystem of other possibilities quickly developed around it. “Suburbs start to be created and distribution of goods from east to west is no longer a concern. All of a sudden, gas stations are cropping up on highways. Fast food restaurants show up. Motels show up, because people are traveling across the state,” Huang says. AI will be similar. Machines that can do many tasks better and faster than humans will create ripple effects that change many aspects of how we do our jobs and live our lives. How can you try to peek around the corner and get a glimpse of what that might look like? Huang suggests you ask yourself two key questions. If the drudgery it takes to do my job disappears, what changes? Some people worry that AI might take away jobs, making many workers superfluous. Huang doesn’t share this fear. He believes human insight and creativity will still be important, but what we spend our time on will be different. AI will kill rote donkey work. “Suppose that your job continues to be important, but the effort by which you do it went from a week long to almost instantaneous, that the effort and drudgery basically goes to zero. What are the implications of that?” Huang asks. Imagine you have an AI software programmer in your pocket that can write any software program you dream up. Or consider how it would impact your work if you could describe a rough idea and an AI could quickly produce a prototype for you to interact with. Innovations like these, Huang insists, shouldn’t make us feel threatened. They should make us feel empowered and excited about all the higher-level thinking and problem solving we’ll be freed to do. “I think it’s going to be incredibly fun,” he says. How can I use AI to do my job better now? If Huang’s first question is designed to get you thinking about what your work might look like 10 years from now, his second nudges you to consider what you can do now to prepare for that future. Huang tells Abrams that he has an AI tutor with him at all times. It’s a practice he recommends to just about everyone. “The knowledge of almost any particular field, the barriers to that understanding have been reduced,” he says. “If there’s one thing I would encourage everybody to do, it’s go get an AI tutor right away.” But don’t stop there. Huang’s more general point is that the more you experiment with AI now, the better prepared you’ll be to use it to your advantage as it develops. “If I were a student today, the first thing I would do is learn AI,” he declares a bit later in the podcast. He doesn’t mean learn technical details of the math behind the machines—though if you’re into that, certainly have at it. He means playing around with current tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to get comfortable with how to prompt them effectively. “Learning to interact with AI is not unlike being someone who is really good at asking questions,” he claims. “Promoting AI is very similar.” It’s a skill that requires honing. The end goal for everyone should be to begin thinking though how AI can best assist you with your work. “If I were a student today,” Huang continues, “doesn’t matter what field of science I am going to go into or what profession I am, I am going to ask myself, how am I going to use AI to do my job better?” Other AI experts agree with Huang Huang’s two questions are a great place to begin if you want to start to get a handle on how AI is going to affect you. But he’s hardly the only expert weighing in. There is no shortage of books on AI you can read to try and wrap your head around the technology. Other CEOs, like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Bill Gates, have also weighed in on what our AI-future may look like and how to prepare. Even experts are still trying to figure out the future of AI, so don’t feel bad if you’re overwhelmed too. But while technologists are still building the future, they all agree we shouldn’t let anxiety or uncertainty get in the way of experimentation. The time for all of us to start thinking about the future of AI and playing with these tools is now. EXPERT OPINION BY JESSICA STILLMAN @ENTRYLEVELREBEL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ARBJQn6QkM