Generative AI joined the business world in November 2022, but — more than three years later — many of us still aren’t comfortable with it, thanks to headlines about potential job loss, legal risks and other concerns. But Wall Street Journal technology columnist Christopher Mims has written a new book, How to AI: Cut Through the Hype. Master the Basics. Transform Your Work, providing 24 “laws” that make the technology far less intimidating. One reviewer says “How To AI” offers “an optimistic, realistic, and down-to-earth practical guide on how to use AI in daily life.” We talked to Mims to get some insight.
Question: Perfectly rational business leaders can panic when they hear “AI.” What is the most common reason for their fear — and what’s the overarching reason for business leaders to embrace AI instead?
Answer: Change is always scary, but change that threatens to take away your job is terrifying. It’s a natural human reaction when faced with an existential threat over which we have no power — denial, delay, dissociation. But my core message is this: It is really early days for AI development and adoption, and there is no one right way to use these technologies. For perhaps the first time ever, a technology has arrived that can be a huge benefit to those who might be feeling most threatened by it.
Q: One of your larger messages is that AI is a tool, not a replacement. What are some unexpected ways business leaders are using generative AI to do their jobs better?
A: When it comes to AI, it’s important to walk before you attempt to run. Start with letting it record every one of your meetings, and then ask it to extract insights from them. But don’t just use it to replace note-taking — actually change how you conduct meetings as a result. (When the weather is nice, I’ve turned all my Zoom meetings into walking meetings; when I need to be on camera, I have started taking notes by hand again, with the AI transcript as backup.)
From there, get experimental: Ask AI to create “personas” (for example: “You are a Fortune 100 CEO with 30 years of experience in leadership roles …”) and try asking them for advice on matters you might normally put to a personal board.
After that, find yourself an engineer and start talking to them about what repetitive tasks your company now outsources which could better be handled by AI agents.
Q: Many business leaders hand off anything AI-related to IT. Why is it important for them to dive into AI themselves?
A: This is the first technology in history that can teach you how to use it. (Really: Try asking it how it could help you in any given situation.) But this is also why I wrote How to AI — because having at least a basic understanding of how this stuff works is as important in 2026 as having a basic understanding of how the Web worked circa the turn of the millennium.
Q: One reason leaders might shy away from AI is that their teams don’t want to get on board. Do you have any quick fixes for that?
A: Every organization has at least one person who is curious about and experimenting with AI. Start convening lunch-and-learn sessions where this person gets to show off how it works for them. If you want to get more ambitious, find people like this and make them resident “black belts” who are assigned to talk to every team in the company about how to use AI.
Q: Words like risk, bias and hallucinate can still make it hard to be at ease with generative AI. Your book offers several simple ways to address many of those problems. Can you sum those up here?
A: AI is software, and all the old rules still apply. Garbage in means garbage out; a human has to review its work because hallucination never goes away; and if you’re in a highly regulated industry, bias in your AI systems is your responsibility to fix. For that last one, there’s a whole industry of “algorithmic auditors” who can help.
Learn more about How to AI: Cut Through the Hype. Master the Basics. Transform Your Work.
Christopher Mims writes about technology for The Wall Street Journal and previously covered technology for Quartz. The author of Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door — Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy, Mims has written about subjects from bidets to brain implants and wireless communications to flying taxis.