Anyone who has ever started out coding will remember it. That famous little program — the one where you write a few lines, hit run, and the screen says “Hello, Scott.” It’s barely code. It’s almost nothing. But it’s everything when you’re starting out.

I found myself there again one evening. This time it was Python, and I was grinning at a terminal like I was seventeen again. That same sense of fun, that same little buzz of I made the thing do the thing. Surprisingly, it still hits the same way all these years later.

But I’m getting off topic. How did I end up here, one evening, writing Hello World again?

The Quote That Started It

Like most of us in IT, I’ve been consuming more and more content around AI. I’ll get to some of my broader thoughts in future posts, but the one that really landed came from Scott Galloway:

“AI won’t take your job, but the person who knows how to use it will.”

That stuck with me. Not in a fear-driven way, but in a right, let’s actually do something about this way. Let’s take out the fear. Let’s move past the “turn on Copilot and we’re an AI company” thinking. Let’s get back to basics — set myself a goal, learn properly, brush up on skills, and sit some exams along the way because I love having a target to hit.

So I Asked AI to Help Me Plan It

I’ll be honest — the first thing I did was open Claude and say right, help me build a plan. I gave it a few things to work with:

  • I want to get certified in Azure AI — give me the path
  • I want to program alongside the study — Python, because I’ve been using it for years with APIs but never gone deep
  • I want to build real projects outside of the study material, not just follow tutorials
  • I want a structure I can stick to across 12 months — something with milestones, not just a reading list
  • I want it to be practical — show me what I can apply to my actual job, not just theory

What came back was a structured 12-month bootcamp plan — phased, with certifications mapped to each quarter, Python skills building alongside, and project milestones to keep it real. Was it perfect first time? No. Did I reshape it? Absolutely. But the starting point it gave me in twenty minutes would have taken me days to research and pull together myself. That, right there, is AI being useful — not doing the work for me, but accelerating the thinking.

One Week In

So there I was, about a week into the plan — working through AI-prescribed Python study, prepping for my first certification, and starting to sketch out a project. And I thought: I should share this.

Not because I’ve got it figured out — I haven’t. But because I know there are people out there on a similar journey, trying to work out what AI actually means for them. Not the hype. Not the LinkedIn posts about how AI will replace every job by Tuesday. The real, practical question: how does this change what I do, and how do I make sure I’m on the right side of it?

That’s what this blog is about. I want to figure out what AI means to me, how it impacts the way I do my job, how I can leverage it for myself and the customers I work with — but also cut through some of the noise and share honestly as I go.

What I Think So Far

I’ll say this — I think this is a fundamental shift. But as with all things in tech, there’s a lot of hype and a lot of noise layered on top of it. What I want to do is make sure I’m there to fundamentally understand it, not just wave at it from a distance. I want to be in a position to take advantage of it, and in my job, deliver the best results for the customers I work with.

If you’re on a similar journey, stick around. I’ll be posting about the certs, the projects, the things that click, and the things that don’t.

And if nothing else, I can confirm — writing Hello World still feels great.