The other day I caught myself using AI the wrong way. I asked it for a summary, copied what it gave me, and felt like I had learned something. Two days later I couldn’t even remember what “I” wrote.

Turns out that is not just me being forgetful. MIT actually studied this. They had three groups write essays. One group wrote on their own. Another used Google. The third used ChatGPT.

The ChatGPT group came out worst. Their brain scans showed less engagement. When they were asked to redo the work without AI, they struggled. They had barely learned anything.

It is like watching someone else play Mario Bros and thinking you are getting better at the game. You are not. You never build the muscle memory of hitting the jumps or figuring out where the Goombas are hiding. You only learn by picking up the controller yourself.

That is the trap with AI. It makes it too easy to skip the struggle. But the struggle is where the growth happens.

Steven Bartlett had Mustafa Suleyman, the head of Microsoft AI, on his Diary of a CEO podcast. Mustafa’s advice was simple. Play with AI. Try everything you can. Break it. See where it gets things wrong. That is how you chip away at the hype and actually learn.

So how do you use AI the right way? Start by doing it yourself. Write the draft. Solve the problem. Take the notes. Then bring in AI as a sparring partner.

Ask it to point out your blind spots. Make it argue against you. Let it sharpen your thinking, not replace it. Then step away and test yourself later without AI. If you can recall and explain what you learned on your own, then it is yours.

This matters if you are just learning for yourself. It matters even more if you are building an online school. In a Productized Education program you are not selling knowledge. You are selling clarity, connection, and accountability.

None of those work if AI is doing the work for the student. Clarity disappears if they do not really understand. Connection fades if they do not feel they earned the progress. Accountability breaks when it is too easy to coast.

If you want transformation, you need some friction.

AI should be the helpful sidekick. It can give you hints. It can point out the path. Maybe even save you when you fall in a pit. But you still have to play the game yourself. That is the only way to level up.