💯 You have 30 days to trust yourself with AI

What we saw in 2025

This post below from Ian is a pretty good snapshot of a pattern we saw again and again inside the 30 days of AI challenges this past year.

Ian talks about the moment where his instinct changed. Lovable didn’t work as he expected when he was ready to build his portfolio. And instead of blaming the tool, he started thinking about how to fix the prompt.

What we saw across hundreds of people in 2025 looked a lot like this:

• People stopped waiting for AI to be perfect.

• They stopped treating mistakes as proof it “wasn’t ready.”

• They started adjusting, thinking, and iterating the same way you would with a teammate.

A lot of the most meaningful progress didn’t show up as finished products but many rough agents and messy workflows. Skeletons, like Ian calls them.

And that’s kind of the point.

Where most people get stuck

Something I noticed in 2025 is that a lot of people stalled learning AI. I don’t think it was because AI is confusing but because they consume AI content instead of practice it.

AI is especially good at creating the illusion of progress. You can feel busy building anything. It’s the equivalent of watching videos of people working out, buying the running shoes, maybe doing one workout, and assuming the habit will form on its own.

Once we saw this pattern clearly, we stopped trying to motivate people and started designing around behavior instead.

What January is really good for

January is a funny month. Everyone’s “starting fresh,” promising themselves they’ll finally stick with something this time. AI included.

What I’ve noticed, though, is that most progress doesn't come from clean starts. It comes from coming back, a little less precious about getting it perfect. Like Adam here 👇

He did part of the 30 Days challenge, life got busy, he dropped off and now he’s back for the next round. So if you tried AI last year and drifted off, January is actually great for that.

Another thing that seems to help is not doing it alone. Some people DM someone like Adam here and say “hey, want to do this together?”. Others join with a coworker. We even had someone go through the challenge with their son.

If you’re up for it, the next round starts this Tuesday Jan 13, alongside thousands of other professionals. It’s interactive, free, takes 30 minutes a day, for 30 days.

We’re kicking things off with a live welcome + Q&A tomorrow Jan 12 at 7pm UK time where you can meet the team, get context, and start strong.

A quick note if you’re reading this from work

We’ve been running AI trainings for teams who want their people building practical workflows. If that’s relevant for you, you can poke around here and see if it makes sense.

When teams go through this together, a few things shift fast:

• Standards start forming naturally.

• People stop hiding how they’re using AI from their team.

• “Is this good?” becomes a shared conversation instead of a private doubt spiral.

Keeping up with AI 🗞️

• 25 AI Highlights of 2025

• Find out which LLM to use for which task

• 3 ways you can use NotebookLM’s new Data Tables

Before you go ✌️

If there’s one thing last year taught us, it’s this: everyone is figuring this out in real time and the people who make progress are the ones who keep showing up, even when it’s a little messy.

Let’s keep going!!