For Non-Technical People
If you’re not technical and you’re trying to figure out where AI fits in your life, I want to start with something that might feel strange coming from an AI guide: the most important question has nothing to do with AI. It’s about how you feel called to add value in the world. What problem do you care about? Who do you want to serve? What have people already paid you for, at whatever scale you’ve been able to work at? Those questions come first. AI comes second.
Once you have a real answer to those questions, AI starts to look very different. It’s not some foreign technical thing that requires a computer science degree. It’s a tool that can help you do what you’re already called to do, bigger and faster. Maybe you’ve been solving a problem on a small scale and you’ve always wanted to help more people. AI can help you serve ten times as many people with the same amount of energy. That’s the frame. Not “how do I become an AI person,” but “how does AI help me become more fully the person I already am?”
The practical starting point for a non-technical person isn’t a tool or a course. It’s three questions you should sit with and write out your honest answers to. First: what is the real problem you want to solve? Second: have you already solved it in a smaller way, and could AI help you do that at a bigger scale? Third: who do you most want to serve, and what have they shown they’re willing to pay for (with money or with attention or with trust)? These aren’t AI questions. They’re clarity questions. But they will make every subsequent AI decision infinitely more grounded.
The Holy Spirit has been putting things on people’s hearts long before AI was a word. I genuinely believe that for a lot of people, the calling came first, and AI is just the provision that makes the calling possible at the scale it was always meant to be. Don’t let the technical framing of this moment distract you from the more important work of getting clear on what you’re here to do.
And if you think you need a computer science degree to participate in this, let me tell you about two people I met on a SXSW panel in March 2026. Jordan Hill had never written a line of code two years before that panel. He went deep into agentic coding, skipped the traditional software engineering path entirely, and is now making good money helping businesses integrate AI systems (he even built an automated coding pipeline for a client). Rostam came from a finance and data analytics background with zero AI experience. His first AI event was a Meta hackathon where he showed up not knowing what an IDE was. He literally asked: “What is deployment? How do you use Cursor? What’s everything?” The AI community was kind to newcomers. Within a year and a half, he was running his own consulting firm helping Series B companies implement AI agents. The starting point is lower than most people think. You do not need permission or credentials. You need willingness to learn, humility to ask questions, and the discipline to get reps in.
Key Takeaway
Start with your calling and the value you’re meant to add; let AI amplify that, rather than searching for a role to play in the AI story.