Ten-Week Project-Based Plan for Practical AI Fluency
TL;DR
- A 10-week, project-based AI resolution builds practical fluency by focusing on modular, completable tasks, fostering habits and workflows that compound over time for lasting utility.
- Building a personal AI topography by comparing models across use cases reveals that most users leave capability on the table by defaulting to a single model.
- Stress-testing deep research features in AI models closes the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical trust, enabling informed decision-making by pushing for disconfirming evidence.
- Automating common workflows, such as content distribution or email follow-ups, significantly increases personal and business value by handling repetitive tasks with human oversight.
- Developing a professional context document and AI operating system structure reduces conversational friction by providing AI with necessary background, preventing constant re-explanation of situations.
- Building an AI-powered application, rather than just using chatbots, leverages AI's capabilities for specific functions like knowledge-based chatbots or conversational agents, demonstrating practical application.
- An agent evaluation gauntlet updates the mental model from simple chatbots to understanding agentic capabilities, identifying reliable delegation opportunities and reducing oversight needs.
Deep Dive
This AI Daily Brief episode presents a 10-week, project-based plan for achieving practical AI fluency by the start of 2026. The core argument is that hands-on experience with diverse AI tools and workflows is more valuable than theoretical knowledge, enabling individuals to build sustainable habits and systems for integrating AI into their professional and personal lives. This self-guided resolution emphasizes modular, completable projects that yield tangible outputs, aiming to equip participants with a broad understanding of AI capabilities and their real-world applications.
The 10-week plan progresses through a series of distinct projects, each designed to build specific AI skills and workflows. Week one focuses on "vibe coding" a personal resolution tracker, establishing a tangible starting point and a tool for monitoring progress. Week two, "model mapping," challenges users to compare different AI models for specific tasks, developing an intuitive understanding of model strengths and weaknesses beyond objective benchmarks. This leads into week three's "deep research sprint," aimed at bridging the gap between theoretical AI research capabilities and practical decision-making by stress-testing AI's ability to inform real-world choices. Week four shifts to "data analysis," encouraging users to leverage LLMs for cleaning datasets, calculating metrics, generating insights, and drafting memos, which can be further enhanced by building repeatable analysis pipelines.
The subsequent weeks introduce more advanced AI applications. Week five, "visual reasoning," uses AI to create infographics or diagrams, focusing on the logic of visual communication and offering alternative designs for complex concepts. This is followed by week six's "information pipeline," which emphasizes building reusable workflows with tools like NotebookLM and Gamma to transform raw information into various polished outputs such as summaries, FAQs, and presentations. Week seven and eight focus on "automations," first by building a content distribution machine and then a productivity workflow automation, highlighting the use of tools like Lindi, n8n, or Make to manage inputs and outputs, thereby increasing efficiency. Week nine, "context engineering," addresses the challenge of AI needing constant re-explanation by guiding users to build a professional context document and an AI operating system structure, improving AI's understanding of individual needs and preferences. Finally, week ten returns to "vibe coding" to build an AI-powered application, such as a custom chatbot or voice agent, leveraging platforms like Google AI Studio for a practical demonstration of AI integration. An optional bonus weekend focuses on an "agent evaluation gauntlet" to compare agentic AI tools against base LLMs for specific tasks, documenting their strengths and weaknesses for future delegation.
The cumulative effect of completing these projects is a comprehensive personal AI toolkit. Participants will have a functional AI tracker, a deep research workflow, visual reasoning skills, active automations for content and productivity, a deployed AI-powered tool, a map of AI tool capabilities, an analysis pipeline, an information processing stack, and a personal AI operating system. This hands-on approach aims to place individuals significantly ahead of the general population in terms of practical AI utilization, fostering habits and systems that are expected to remain relevant beyond the initial 10-week period.
Action Items
- Build AI resolution tracker: Create a web app with completion checkboxes, notes, and progress bar (ref: vibe coding platforms).
- Create model topography document: Map 3-5 AI models to specific use cases (e.g., research, writing, strategy) to identify optimal tool selection.
- Implement deep research workflow: Use AI to inform a real decision or project by iterating with a deep research tool, pushing for disconfirming evidence.
- Design data analysis pipeline: Gather a personal or public dataset, propose cleaning steps, calculate 5-10 metrics, and test 3 hypotheses.
- Develop reusable information processing stack: Use NotebookLM and Gamma to turn raw information (reports, notes) into an executive summary, FAQ, and presentation deck.
Key Quotes
"This final episode of 2025 lays out a practical, self-guided 10-week plan to build real AI fluency by actually doing the work. Each weekend focuses on a concrete project--from model mapping and deep research to data analysis, visual reasoning, automations, context engineering, and building a real AI-powered app--designed to be modular, completable in a few hours, and immediately useful."
The author presents a 10-week plan designed to build practical AI fluency through hands-on projects. The author emphasizes that these projects are modular and can be completed quickly, focusing on actionable skills rather than theoretical knowledge.
"The goal isn’t theory or trends, but habits, workflows, and systems that still matter months from now, setting a foundation for how AI fits into work and life heading into 2026."
The author states that the objective of the 10-week plan is to cultivate lasting habits and systems related to AI usage. The author aims to establish a foundation for integrating AI into daily work and life that will remain relevant beyond immediate trends.
"The setup this is not a course in the sense that one thing builds upon another it's 10 different projects imagine for a weekend although of course you can do it whenever you want that are practical by default forcing outputs not theory that are highly completable where each project ends with something real completely modular as in you can skip or do them in any order without derailing anything although they are also compounding in the sense that if you do them in sequence some of the later ones will build on the others."
The author clarifies that the 10-week AI resolution is structured as a series of independent projects rather than a sequential course. The author highlights that each project is designed to be practical, produce tangible outputs, and can be undertaken in any order, though completing them sequentially may offer compounding benefits.
"The goal is to build some habits and workflows that you can actually still be using some months from now although of course there's no guarantee that what we'll be doing in six months is anything like what we're doing right at this moment."
The author explains that the intention behind the AI resolution is to foster sustainable habits and workflows. The author acknowledges the rapid evolution of AI, noting that current practices may not remain static over extended periods.
"On the whole with that out of the way let's talk about your first weekend project getting a little bit meta we are going to vibe code a resolution tracker that is a web app that actually tracks your progress through these 10 weeks."
The author introduces the first project of the 10-week plan, which involves "vibe coding" a resolution tracker. The author describes this as a meta-project, where participants build a web application to monitor their progress through the subsequent weeks of the program.
"The deliverable here is a reusable workflow for turning raw information into polished output for example taking one set of inputs and turning them into an executive summary an faq a presentation deck and even in the case of gamma a website all again with a single reusable workflow."
The author outlines the deliverable for a specific weekend project, which is to create a reusable workflow for transforming raw information into various polished outputs. The author provides examples such as generating executive summaries, FAQs, presentation decks, and even websites from a single set of inputs.
Resources
External Resources
Books
- "AI New Year’s: The 10-Week AI Resolution" - Mentioned as the title of the episode and the framework for the presented projects.
Articles & Papers
- "Studies" - Mentioned as suggesting that a low percentage of people have used deep research features in AI models.
Tools & Software
- Lindi - Mentioned as an automation platform to consider for building automations.
- n8n - Mentioned as an automation platform to consider for building automations.
- Make - Mentioned as an automation platform to consider for building automations.
- Replit - Mentioned as a vibe coding platform for building applications.
- Lovable - Mentioned as a vibe coding platform for building applications.
- Google AI Studio - Mentioned as a platform for building AI-powered applications and specifically for a vibe coding project.
- Nano Banana Pro - Mentioned for its image generation capabilities and as a tool for visual reasoning.
- ChatGPT Images 1.5 - Mentioned for its image generation capabilities and as a tool for visual reasoning.
- Canva - Mentioned as a tool for creating visuals, such as infographics and diagrams.
- Gamma - Mentioned as a tool for creating presentations and websites from information.
- Notebook LM - Mentioned as a tool for processing information and generating various outputs like executive summaries and presentations.
- Airtable - Mentioned as a potential platform for logging automation outputs.
- HubSpot - Mentioned as a CRM system with native automation building capabilities.
- Superhuman - Mentioned as an email inbox tool with automation capabilities.
- Gmail - Mentioned as an email inbox tool with automation capabilities.
People
- Jen Spark - Mentioned as the person who turned the outline into a presentation.
- Claude - Mentioned as the AI that put the outline into a set of slides.
Organizations & Institutions
- Super Intelligent - Mentioned as the company that offers an AI planning platform and a "Plateau Breaker" assessment.
- Robots and Pencils - Mentioned as a company that partners with clients to enhance human potential through AI and accelerate cloud transformation.
- AWS - Mentioned as a certification for Robots and Pencils' teams.
- Blitz - Mentioned as an enterprise autonomous software development platform.
Websites & Online Resources
- aidailybrief.ai - Mentioned as the website to check for speaking engagements, newsletter updates, job updates, and sponsorship.
- aidbintel.com - Mentioned as the website to go to for updates on the forthcoming ADB Intelligence product.
- aidbnewyear.com - Mentioned as the community website for sharing AI resolution projects and as a free experience.
- Kaggle - Mentioned as a source for public data sets for analysis projects.
Other Resources
- 10-Week AI Resolution - Mentioned as a self-guided path to AI fluency, consisting of projects to gain exposure to AI tools.
- AI Daily Brief - Mentioned as a daily podcast and video about AI news and discussions.
- Patreon.com/aidailybrief - Mentioned as a platform to get an ad-free version of the show.
- Apple Podcasts - Mentioned as a platform to subscribe for an ad-free version of the show.
- AI Resolution Folder - Mentioned as infrastructure to set up before starting the AI resolution projects.
- AI Playbook - Mentioned as a section within an AI operating system structure for storing best prompts.
- Automation Log - Mentioned as a section within an AI operating system structure for recording automation details.
- Decision Log - Mentioned as a section within an AI operating system structure for recording decisions.
- Agent Evaluation Gauntlet - Mentioned as a bonus or substitute weekend project focused on evaluating AI agents.
- Agent Store Card - Mentioned as the deliverable for the agent evaluation gauntlet.
- Voice Agents - Mentioned as a technology used to collect information and diagnose AI bottlenecks.
- AI Planning Platform - Mentioned as the type of product offered by Super Intelligent.
- Plateau Breaker Assessment - Mentioned as a new type of assessment offered by Super Intelligent to break through AI plateaus.
- AI Speed - Mentioned as a focus for Robots and Pencils in the AI race.
- Enterprise Autonomous Software Development Platform - Mentioned as the category for Blitz.
- AI Native SCLC - Mentioned as a goal for organizations incorporating Blitz.
- Information Pipeline - Mentioned as a concept for using underutilized tools like Notebook LM and Gamma.
- Content Distribution Machine - Mentioned as a common and useful automation to build.
- Email Inbox Follow Up System - Mentioned as a suggested automation for managing input and follow-through.
- Lead Response System - Mentioned as a suggested automation for managing input and follow-through.
- Meeting Prep Bot - Mentioned as a potential automation for generating meeting briefings.
- Professional Context Document - Mentioned as a resource to help AI understand user context.
- AI Operating System Structure - Mentioned as a way to organize AI-related resources.
- Capture Habit - Mentioned as a habit for processing AI-related notes and updating the system.
- AI-Powered Tool - Mentioned as a deliverable from the 10-week resolution.
- AI Tool Topography - Mentioned as a deliverable from the 10-week resolution.
- Analysis Pipeline - Mentioned as a deliverable from the 10-week resolution.
- Info Processing Stack - Mentioned as a deliverable from the 10-week resolution.
- Personal AI Operating System - Mentioned as a deliverable from the 10-week resolution.