Try asking this in your next team meeting: "Who on our team is the best at using AI?"
There will probably be a moment of silence. Someone thinks of the person who uses the tools the most. Someone thinks of the person who's good with prompts. Someone thinks of whoever recently produced something impressive-looking with AI. But none of these answers feels convincing. There's a gut sense that something is off — and yet nobody knows what the right criterion would be.
Nearly every company is standing in front of this wall right now. AI competence is rising to the top of hiring and performance criteria, and there's no yardstick to measure it with. This essay proposes one. The short answer is a set of five axes I call ABCD2. But before that, we need to fix the question itself.
The very idea of "good at using AI" is wrong
The title of this essay says "good at AI" — but that phrasing is itself the trap.
