Thursday, February 5, 2026
Welcome to another issue of HOW TO // AI. I’m David, your author, and I’m here to help you make AI simple and practical.
Here’s what we’ve got for ya:
🗺️ Your Personalized AI Learning Path: 4 Paths + Copy-Paste Prompts to Get Started
📚 Google Gemini Now Offers Full SAT Practice Tests for Free
💰 ChatGPT Now Has Ads (But Not for Everyone)
🗣️ Quick Hits: Hot AI Tools, AI Product Updates, and AI News!
Let’s get started!
Here’s how I use Attio to run my day.
Attio is the AI CRM with conversational AI built directly into your workspace. Every morning, Ask Attio handles my prep:
Surfaces insights from calls and conversations across my entire CRM
Update records and create tasks without manual entry
Answers questions about deals, accounts, and customer signals that used to take hours to find
All in seconds. No searching, no switching tabs, no manual updates.
Ready to scale faster?
🗺️ Your Personalized AI Learning Path: Choose Your Own Adventure
Last week you got 20 copy-paste prompts that crushed it (highest open rate ever—thank you!). This week, we're going deeper.
Everyone says "learn AI," but nobody asks what you actually want to DO with it. The path for someone building a side business looks nothing like the path for someone trying to level up at their 9-5.
So let's fix that. Pick ONE goal, and I'll show you exactly what to learn, which tools to use, and what to practice. Plus, I'm giving you a copy-paste prompt that turns your AI into a personal coach for your chosen path.
First: What's Your Main Goal?
🎯 Path A: Career Advancement - I want to be more valuable at work or land a better role
🎨 Path B: Creative Projects - I want to make content, art, or bring ideas to life
⚡ Path C: Personal Productivity - I want to work smarter and save time
💼 Path D: Side Business - I want to build something and make money
Got yours? Let's dive in.
🎯 Path A: Career Advancement
Your Goal: Stand out at work, get promoted, or become the "AI person" everyone comes to.
What to Learn: Professional communication, data analysis basics, meeting prep, and research.
Your Tools:
Main: ChatGPT or Claude
Add: Notion AI, Perplexity, Grammarly
4-Week Practice:
Week 1: Create a post-mortem report for a recent project
Week 2: Automate your weekly status update
Week 3: Research a competitor and present findings
Week 4: Build your personal "operating manual"
Show Value: Share insights in meetings, help colleagues with reports, create templates others can use, and track your time saved.
Your Path Prompt (Copy & Paste):
I'm on the Career Advancement path. I want to become more valuable at work and get promoted. My role is [your job title] at a [company type/size].
Walk me through Week 1: Help me create a project post-mortem report for [recent project]. Ask me questions about what worked, what didn't, key learnings, and recommendations. Then format it as a professional report I can share with my team.
After we finish Week 1, guide me to Week 2 and so on. Keep me accountable and give me specific next steps each week.
🎨 Path B: Creative Projects
Your Goal: Make cool stuff—content, art, stories, videos—faster and better.
What to Learn: Idea generation, story structure, visual prompts, and content repurposing.
Your Tools:
Main: Claude or ChatGPT
Add: Midjourney/DALL-E, Descript, Canva
4-Week Practice:
Week 1: Create a 7-day content series
Week 2: Repurpose one piece into 5 different formats
Week 3: Generate 50 visual concepts, refine top 10
Week 4: Create a short story or video with AI
Build Portfolio: Share your process (not just finals), create templates, start a 30-day challenge.
Your Path Prompt (Copy & Paste):
I'm on the Creative Projects path. I want to create [content type: videos/articles/art/music] about [your topic/niche]. My creative style is [describe your style or say "still figuring it out"].
Start with Week 1: Help me brainstorm and outline a 7-day content series. Ask me questions about my audience, what value I want to provide, and what formats work best for me. Then give me 7 specific content ideas with angles that stand out.
Guide me through each week, giving me prompts and feedback as I create. Keep me moving forward.
⚡ Path C: Personal Productivity
Your Goal: Get organized, stop forgetting things, and have time for what matters.
What to Learn: Task management, note-taking, email management, calendar optimization.
Your Tools:
Main: ChatGPT or Gemini
Add: Notion AI, Otter.ai, Zapier
4-Week Practice:
Week 1: Build your "second brain" system
Week 2: Create email templates + auto-sort rules
Week 3: Design your ideal weekly routine
Week 4: Automate one daily task completely
Measure Success: Track time saved, count inbox zero days, monitor how much lighter you feel.
Your Path Prompt (Copy & Paste):
I'm on the Productivity path. My biggest time-wasters are [list 2-3 things: email overload, scattered notes, too many meetings, etc.]. I use [list your main tools: Gmail, Notion, Google Calendar, etc.].
Start with Week 1: Help me build a "second brain" system for capturing and organizing everything I need to remember. Ask me about what information I currently lose track of, how I like to organize things, and what tools I'm already using. Then design a simple system I can start using today.
Walk me through each week, helping me build templates, routines, and automations. Make this sustainable.
💼 Path D: Side Business
Your Goal: Build something, make money, turn your idea into reality.
What to Learn: Market research, marketing copy, financial basics, customer service, landing pages.
Your Tools:
Main: ChatGPT or Claude
Add: Perplexity, Canva, Notion AI
4-Week Practice:
Week 1: Validate idea with 10 customer interviews
Week 2: Write landing page + pricing
Week 3: Create 30 days of content
Week 4: Launch to first 10 customers
Build Smart: Use AI to do the work of 5 people. You focus on delivery, AI handles everything else.
Your Path Prompt (Copy & Paste):
I'm on the Side Business path. My idea is [describe your business idea or say "I have a few ideas I'm exploring"]. My target customers are [describe who you want to serve]. My goal is to [make first sale/validate idea/launch in 30 days].
Start with Week 1: Help me validate this idea. Create an interview guide with 10 questions I should ask potential customers. Then help me research competitors and identify what makes my approach different. Give me a clear go/no-go decision framework.
Guide me week by week from idea to first customers. Be honest about what's working and what's not.
🎯 Your Action Steps
This Week:
Pick your path - which one resonated most?
Copy the prompt - grab the one for your path above
Paste into ChatGPT or Claude - fill in the brackets with your info
Start Week 1 - let AI coach you through it
Tell one person - accountability works
Start with one path for 30 days. Then mix paths as needed.
The difference between people who "dabble" with AI and people who transform their work? They pick a clear path and stick with it for 30 days.
What path are you choosing? Reply and let me know - I read every email!
The Rundown: Google launched full-length SAT practice tests directly in Gemini, available at no cost to anyone with a Google account. Just tell Gemini "I want to take a practice SAT test" and you're off to the races—no downloads, no sign-ups, just instant test prep.
Details:
Practice tests are grounded in rigorously vetted content from The Princeton Review and other leading education companies, ensuring the questions closely resemble what students will see on actual test day.
After completing a practice test, Gemini provides immediate feedback highlighting strengths and weaknesses, plus the ability to ask follow-up questions like "explain why this answer is correct."
Gemini then creates a customized study plan based on identified knowledge gaps, turning test results into actionable next steps for improvement.
Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, and personal Google account users who are signed in to the Gemini app.
More standardized tests (ACT, GRE, etc.) are planned for future rollout.
Takeaway: This is huge for students and parents—free, unlimited SAT practice with AI-powered feedback and study plans. If you're prepping for the SAT or helping someone who is, this beats paying $50+ for a Princeton Review book. For anyone learning AI, this shows how AI tutoring is moving from "nice to have" to "table stakes" in education. Try it out even if you're not taking the SAT—it's a great example of personalized AI coaching in action.
The Rundown: OpenAI officially launched advertising in ChatGPT for Free and ChatGPT Go users, marking a major shift for the platform. With 800M weekly active users and 2.5B daily prompts, the ad potential is massive—but Plus, Business, and Enterprise tiers stay ad-free.
Details:
Ads initially target U.S. users on Free tier and the new ChatGPT Go plan; Plus ($20/mo), Business, and Enterprise subscribers remain ad-free for now.
Weekly active users doubled from 400M in February 2025 to 800M today, making ChatGPT's audience larger than most social platforms.
Meta also announced it will use data from Meta AI interactions (prompts, questions, shared media) to personalize ads across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—with over 1B monthly Meta AI users.
Gartner predicts 25% of traditional search volume will shift to AI chatbots by end of 2026, forcing traditional SEO/PPC to evolve.
Takeaway: The free AI era is ending. If you're on ChatGPT Free, expect ads in your conversations soon. If you want ad-free AI, budget for a paid plan. For marketers and businesses, this opens a huge new advertising channel—but relevance matters more than ever. Annoying ads in AI chats will get brutally ignored faster than banner ads ever were.
Hot AI Tools 🔥
🤖 OpenClaw (formerly Moltbot) — The viral open-source personal AI agent that runs locally and connects to WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, iMessage. Hit 100K GitHub stars in 2 months.
📊 Privacy Watch — Automates GDPR compliance monitoring with real-time alerts. With record-high fines in 2025, this is becoming essential for businesses.
🏢 RainFocus Nexus — AI-powered collaboration framework that acts as specialized AI agents for event planners, handling everything from planning to follow-up.
💻 Windsurf AI Coding — Just dropped prices 25% to compete with Cursor. Both tools now hit 85% developer adoption and are the top coding agents for 2026.
AI Product Updates 🧩
🎵 Suno AI Joins Warner Music — AI music platform Suno is now distributed through Warner Music Group with licensed Disney character access for music generation.
🍎 Apple-Google Siri Partnership — Apple and Google announced a multi-year deal to power next-gen Siri with Gemini's 1.2 trillion parameter model, launching March 2026 with iOS 26.4.
🤖 Meta's "Avocado" Model — Meta testing a frontier model code-named "Avocado" to succeed Llama, planning $115-135B in AI capex for 2026.
💊 ChatGPT Health Expands — OpenAI's dedicated health discussion feature now available beyond waitlist, separate from regular chats with physician-reviewed safety features.
AI News 🗞️
💸 Anthropic Tool Sparks $285B Stock Selloff — New AI automation tool from Anthropic triggered massive rout across software, financial services, and asset management sectors on Tuesday.
🚗 Waymo Hits Child in Santa Monica — January 23 incident prompted NHTSA investigation into the robotaxi company; UK launch still planned for September with 173M autonomous miles logged.
📉 OpenAI Retiring GPT-4o Models — OpenAI retiring GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, o4-mini, and GPT-5 variants on Feb 13, pushing all users to GPT-5.2.
🔒 66% of CISOs Worried About AI Attacks — AI-driven attacks top CISO concerns for 2026; traditional defenses deemed insufficient against sophisticated AI-powered threats.
🤔 Got Questions?
Have a question you want answered? What path are you choosing? Email [email protected] and you just might be featured in an upcoming issue!
Your homework this week: Pick your path, copy the prompt, paste it into your AI tool, and start Week 1. That's it.
Thanks for reading! -David