RDAUTBMag2026

T HESE DAYS, artificial intelligence (AI) is showing up everywhere in our daily lives—from confer- ence rooms to classrooms, health-care assessments to dinner table conversa- tions. What sets AI apart from past tech innovations? These advanced systems are capable of doing things that previ- ously only humans could do—and doing them quickly. As a technology journalist for publi- cations like Fortune and VentureBeat , I’ve been covering AI for a decade and have watched its evolution firsthand. The progress has been remarkable. Although widespread use of AI has been growing since the 2010s (including under the hood of technologies you use every day, like smartphones and social media), the current global obsession with it really began in November 2022, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT. ChatGPT was the first chatbot of its kind, capable of performing a wide variety of tasks and holding human- sounding conversations. It quickly cap- tured the public’s imagination and became the fastest-growing consumer software application in history, reaching 100million users in its first twomonths. Fast-forward to today. One-third of U.S. adults say they’ve used an AI chat- bot, and about the same percentage of teens say they interact with one daily, according to the Pew Research Center. Despite this widespread adoption, the story of AI is very much still unfolding, and the technology is far from perfect. But you can still use its unprecedented computing powers to your benefit. To engage safely, effectively and creatively, it’s important to understand what you’re working with. Here’s what you need to know. First: What Is AI? AI is technology that enables comput- ers and machines to perform complex tasks that are typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning and problem-solving. When people talk about AI today, they’re usually referring to generative AI, a type of AI system that can create writing, images, videos and computer code. Even more specifically, they’re often talking about AI chatbots, assistants and other conversational AI systems powered by “large language models,” sophisticated software trained on vast amounts of human language data. These systems range from general- purpose tools like ChatGPT and Claude to specialized characters and “agents” made for specific interactions. If you’ve ever engaged with Alexa or Siri, you’ve used something similar. Chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Goo- gle’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude can also act as assistants, but they’re built on newer AI systems and capable of tasks that are far more varied and intricate. Additionally, they’re not con- fined to a voice mode—you can type to them, send them documents and have them analyze photos. AI systems essentially operate as gigantic pattern-analyzing prediction may 2026 | readersdigest.com.au 53