Good AI Guide · Fluency Path
The AI Fluency Path
Most people try AI, get a couple of wins, and plateau. This is the route that keeps compounding — find where you actually stand, then climb one deliberate step at a time. Free, self-paced, no sign-up.
Find where you stand
A two-minute quiz — no right answers, just an honest read on where you are today and the single best thing to do next.
Take the quizKnow the four levels
AI Curious, Explorer, Practitioner, Advanced. What each one actually means in practice — and the playbook to reach the next.
See the levelsWork the checklist
Concrete, tickable skills for your level — Levels 1 to 3 are live. Each item has the why, a try-this example, and a copy-ready prompt.
Open the checklistEarn a certificate
Prove it. Pass a short, open-book knowledge check and get a shareable certificate plus a LinkedIn credential — your name never leaves your browser.
Earn a certificateWhy a path
"Just use AI more" is terrible advice. You get good at AI the way you get good at a language — deliberately, with reps, and by knowing what "better" even looks like. The quiz tells you where you are, the levels tell you what good looks like, the checklist gives you the reps, and the certificate is the proof you put the work in. The path is the map.
— Fabian
Where it leads
A ladder of certificates
Finish a tier of the checklist, prove it with an open-book check, and earn a shareable credential. They stack — and each rung is a real step up.
The estimate, explained
Where “top 10–20%” comes from
There’s no official ranking of AI skill, so “top 10–20%” is my estimate. It rests on three things.
The public numbers
About half of working-age adults have tried generative AI, and most of them use it casually: a quick answer here, a draft there. Only around 3% of consumers pay for it, and even ChatGPT turns only about 5% of its weekly users into paying customers. Paying isn’t the same as being good at it, but it’s a fair hint at how few people use AI seriously.
What I see in person
I go to a lot of AI roundtables, conferences and networking events, and not long ago I had a corporate job myself. In both places, people who have built AI into their daily work as a system are a small minority.
You went looking
If you were curious enough to search for a good AI guide, you’re already ahead of many of your colleagues. It probably never occurred to most of them.
The claim covers one level, AI Practitioner: AI is part of how you work, with persistent context, deliberate model choice, a real research pipeline and a thinking partner you’ve calibrated. The Level 3 checklist gets you there, and the Practitioner check tests whether you understand it. Work that way and you’re plausibly in the top 10–20% of people who use AI.
Sources: Generative AI adoption ≈ half of adults (St. Louis Fed, 2025) ≈3% of consumers pay; ≈5% ChatGPT paid conversion (Menlo Ventures, 2025)
Start where you are
Two minutes to find your level, then a checklist that meets you there. You'll know exactly what to do next.