Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English

AI in plain English for people who don't code, and the people who lead them. What's worth your time and what to do about it.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

Most people who feel behind on AI aren't behind. They're watching it instead of using it.

If you don't code, this is the short version I'd give a friend:

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

Quick test for any team using AI at work: your one tool goes down at 9am. Then what?
Every service has outages. Yours will too.
You don't need five subscriptions. You need a backup someone actually logged into this month, not one mentioned in a meeting once.
What's your plan B?

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@GergelyOrosz Twenty hours, and the fix was finishing a migration someone kept postponing. Legacy always sends the invoice.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@ThePrimeagen Agents just expose that the plan only lived in your head. A map of the states beats a longer prompt.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@marclou @cursor_ai Building it for $4,000 and finding out it doesn't pay is useful. The expensive version is not checking.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@mattshumer_ True for the models. The process around them is another story, and that's where most teams get stuck.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@emollick Vibe-testing is how most managers already pick tools. Nice to see the research catch up with the hallway.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@ThePrimeagen Tab complete is great until you notice you stopped reading what you accept.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@volosatovde Exactly. The long version protects the sender. The short one respects the reader.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

Tuesday test before you send a long email:
Ask an AI to cut it in half without losing the point.
Read both.
Nobody has ever replied "this was too short."

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

Friday, 20 minutes. Keep it, drop it, or try a different task next week.
You'll learn more than a 10-page policy would teach you.
If you ran this with your team, which task would you start with?

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

If you lead a team that doesn't code, skip the AI strategy memo. Nobody reads it anyway.
Run a one-week trial instead. One tool, real work, no slides.
Here's how I'd do it:

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

No practice prompts. Real work only, and a human checks before anything leaves the building.
Everyone keeps a short note: time saved, mistakes caught, where it was useless. Useless counts. That's data too.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

Office rule I'd make: if you wouldn't paste it in a group chat with your client, don't paste it into a free AI tool.
Contracts, salaries, health stuff. Use the work account or leave it out.
Sounds obvious. Then Friday at 5pm happens.
What does your company actually allow?

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@gregisenberg The 12x in $100K customers is the real headline. Companies stopped testing AI and started budgeting for it.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@theo Big numbers for investors. For the rest of us the question is simpler: what happens to the plan we pay for every month?

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@volosatovde Same on cold email. One offer, one question. The long version is usually you stalling before you hit send.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@levelsio Image models never understood a floorplan. A 3D room that respects your actual walls is what homeowners wanted all along.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@mattshumer_ Five releases in one afternoon, zero sprint planning meetings. Every product manager should be watching this.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@emollick Most companies are still rolling out the chatbot for their PDFs. Their AI roadmap is 18 months old and nobody told them.

[Elvin Rojas | AI in plain English @erojasar]

@theo 11 seconds to the first word is how you lose normal users. Nobody waits that long, they just open the other tab.