spotlights a hot-off-the-press book on AI. It’s serious, but hilarious. I recommended it to seven friends even before writing this review! Plus,
, by Bill Butterworth. Also, listen to the
Your AI Cheat Sheet: Serious & Funny
But…did the author “just barf a year’s worth of notes and interview transcripts into an IT prompt…” and presto—Amazon delivers a book?
Not quite. Joanna Stern writes, “Every sentence in this book started in my brain and traveled, via my MacBook keyboard, onto the page. AI never wrote anything from scratch, except in places that I’ve clearly marked.”
This absolutely fascinating and highly-recommended book needs at least two reviews—especially for my more cynical readers.
(
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. More AI slop, Pearson? Give me something practical.”) So…I’m thinking of a second review—a Pop Quiz—and I’ll ask ChatGPT to help me write some tantalizing questions. Example:
True or False? “As of October 2025, Amazon had deployed more than one million robots in their warehouses, factory floors, and fulfillment centers.” (See page 146.)
7 Reasons You and Your Team Members MUST Read This Book!#1. A YEAR WITH AI. After 12 years as the senior personal technology columnist for
The Wall Street Journal, Joanna Stern took a time-off-to-write-a-book break and immersed herself, and her family, into all things AI. (
Watch the video.) Example: She wore a
Bee bracelet all year that recorded everything she said. “It was part diary, part creep, part assistant—and I became surprisingly reliant on it.”
Her Bee bracelet “logged nearly 2,000 hours of audio and transcribed and summarized it.” And yes, she confesses, “I average three curses a day, usually when frustrated with technology...” or her work!
#2. HILARIOUS. Although a book about artificial intelligence is a deadly-serious topic (see the chapter discussing “artificial intimacy”), Joanna Stern sprinkles in plenty of humor. (She could do stand-up!) Example: Before you have permission to read the book, you’re faced with a full-page CAPTCHA and this instruction:
“Please verify you’re a human who is excited to read this book by completing the CAPTCHA below.” The task: “Select all squares with a bicycle on top of a traffic light on top of a bridge.” Then check the box: “I’m not a robot.”
#3. PRACTICAL. Stern is no novice to AI per her previous day job at
The Wall Street Journal. I’ve read her “
Personal Technology” column for years—and implemented many of her practical recommendations. (I’m not tech-savvy and she understands that about many of us.)
The book is jam-packed with AI tools and she doesn’t hesitate to hand out failing grades. Examples:
• Beginning on Feb. 27, 2025, she allowed AI to fully respond to her text and email communications (no edits—just hit “send”).
Oops! After several inappropriate responses, the experiment ended the same day! Warning: Never send “Sorry, I have other plans” to your spouse! (LOL!)
• Frustrated with her eldest son’s bathroom sink—it looked “like a crime scene in a Crest commercial”—she used an AI app, Cursor, to create a video game. Why?
“…if you’ve ever met an eight-year-old, you know there’s only one way to truly reach them: video games.” • “Should I say
please and
thank you to AI?” Get this! She researched that question with “the great-great-grandson of renowned etiquette expert Emily Post and a director at the Emily Post Institute.” (Important! See my “P.S.” below.)
View the 2-minute book trailer:
#4. HYPE-BUSTER! The author saved us a ton of time—sorting through the latest AI hype. “So much of what I tested didn’t make it into this book because it sucked.” My favorite: the AI-agent-controlled vending machine she tested with her
WSJ colleagues “…that ended up giving away everything for free, including a PlayStation 5 and a live fish.”
Must-watch: this nine-minute video, “
We Let AI Run a Vending Machine. It Lost All the Money.” (
Hilarious!)
#5. YOUR AI CHEAT SHEET. Stern delivers her definition of AI on page four—and adds, “Regardless of your AI knowledge level, you’ve probably already realized that there are more types of AI than tote bags in your coat closet.” So she delivers a succinct “cut through all that confusion” AI cheat sheet of 11 big AI milestones, beginning with “The Turing Test” in 1950, plus:
• Dartmouth’s John Mc Carthy (1955)
• ELIZA, the “chatterbot” therapist from MIT’s Joseph Weizenbaum (1966)
• iRobot’s launch of the Roomba (2002)
• Amazon’s Alexa (2014)
• OpenAI’s ChatGPT (2022)
OK, class! Study the cheat sheet. The pop quiz is coming.#6. NON-BORING GLOSSARY! Stern’s year of AI includes glimpses into AI in the dentist’s chair, the robot that chauffeurs her family, the clothes-folding machine in her basement, and the AI therapist “that talked me through my worst bouts of writer’s block.” With AI examples from A to Z, you’ll often reference her 10-page guide,
“The Totally Non-Boring AI Glossary™”—(and this is brilliant—she trademarked the term!).
Honest. The helpful info (plus the humor) in the introduction and the first 25 pages would have been enough content to write a helpful review.
But I couldn’t stop! (And by the way, I do read every book I review.) I made over 50 notes—so watch for my second review.
#7. TASKS FOR AI & HUMANS. In the chapter, “The Colleague Who Never Sleeps,” Stern included research about “a ranked list of 40 jobs most at risk of being taken over by AI”—using an “AI Applicability Score.” If you guessed that the 2.9 million customer service reps in the U.S. are at risk, you’d be right.
What else can AI do for us?You’ll make photocopies of the chart on page 180 for your next weekly staff meeting. The author categorized her book-writing project into eight distinct tasks (three columns)—and which AI tools she used for each task. Also: her ratings!
• 1 ROBOT = Just short of useless
• 2 ROBOTS = Helpful, but needed oversight
• 3 ROBOTS = Solid assist, but with some blind spots
• 4 ROBOTS = Very effective
• 5 ROBOTS = Game changer
Read how Joanna Stern created a Joanna Agent—"an AI version of me that could conduct interviews in my place.”
Oh, my. My Big Idea: Sort the tasks of researching and writing
Your Weekly Staff Meeting into eight tasks and discern how AI could help me.
Your Big Idea? (Maybe discuss at your next weekly staff meeting.)
THERE’S MORE (watch for my second review—with AI’s help!): • Why I’m asking my doctor (and any specialists I see) how they’re using AI—and would they read this book to learn why Stern is especially interested in AI and cancer?
• “Six Rules for Living”—especially Rule #4: “I will raise humans, not robots.” Teach kids how to question AI’s answers—plus
“No companionship chatbots until at least age sixteen. Or maybe ever.” (Whew! If this book were a movie, it would be at least PG-rated. Language. Topics.
You know—everyday life.)
• See the chart with five levels of autonomous driving on page 106 in the chapter, “A Way-Mo Fun Spring Break.” (Note: Level 5 doesn’t exist yet.)
• The fun graphics throughout the book—especially the occasional drawing with the subtitle,
“A Not-at-All Scientific Study.” • The author’s research: “The Effects of Reading Only AI-Written Books on One Human’s Habits and Tastes." (Ditto for a month’s diet of
AI-generated music that lasted just 15 days!)
• Dozens of date-stamped journal entries throughout 2025—documenting her trials and tribulations using AI to do (almost) everything.
Note: While the author carefully balances the possibilities with the perils of AI, other than one reference to Hanukkah, many of my faith-based readers will be disappointed that Stern doesn’t ask theologians and spiritual advisors about what’s coming. You’ll want to go deeper (and read more widely) on the spiritual and moral ripple effect of how companies and users are currently leveraging AI. I urge you to read this book—and keep the conversation going.
MAYBE…this would sell you on the book: Before writing this review, I had already sent the Amazon link to seven friends—“MUST-READ!”
TO ORDER FROM AMAZON, click on the title for
I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything, by Joanna Stern. Listen on
Libro (8 hours, 2 minutes). (And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.)
P.S. Reminder to clergy who also read this eNews. You’ll find a few “non-church words” in this book. If you ask AI to summarize Stern’s April 20, 2025, journal post about six hamsters, be sure to edit the response—before you preach it on Sunday!
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:1) Zack Kass, the author of
THE NEXT RENAISSANCE: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential, quotes Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who “issued a warning to the world’s workers in May 2025.” The alert: “You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, you’re going to lose it to someone who uses AI.”
Question: What jobs in our organization will be handled by AI within the next five years? (Read my
Jan. 15, 2026, review.)
2) Joanna Stern, author of
I Am Not a Robot, has been studying AI for years.
Pick one of her WSJ columns (or videos)—and give us a five-minute report at a future staff meeting. (And yes, you can ask AI to summarize it—and recommend discussion questions!)
• “Joanna Stern explains how new technology could improve the odds for women like herself who have an elevated risk of cancer.” (Read the
WSJ article.)
• “The 12 Biggest Tech Changes of the Past 12 Years” (
5-min. video)
• “I Tried the First Humanoid Home Robot. It Got Weird” (
9-min. video)
• “We Have No Idea How to Code. So We Got Claude to Code This Article for Us,” with Ben Cohen (Read the
WSJ article.)
SECOND READS: Fresh Solutions From Classic BooksYou have changed—and your problems have changed—since you read this the first time!Book #47 of 99: Managing Your BossFor your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by featuring Book #47 of 99 in our series, “Second Reads.” The big idea:
REREAD TO LEAD! Discover how your favorite books (and articles) still have more to teach you and the people you’re coaching and mentoring.
Managing Your Boss
(book or article - Harvard Business Review Classics)
by John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter (March 1, 2008)
When I was consulting, almost 100 percent of the time in my workshops or with clients, I had hallway conversations with really smart people who said something like, “I just don’t get my boss (or board chair). We’re rarely on the same page. Help!”
•
Read my review in Issue No. 201 (Nov. 8, 2010).
• Order book from
Amazon; or article from
HBR.
• Management Bucket #7 of 20:
The People Bucket.
Join me on the "Boss Talk" path: “How many hours have you worked so far this year? How many hours have you invested in studying and understanding your boss this year?” “Is your boss a reader or a listener? What are your boss’s
Top-5 strengths on the Gallup StrengthsFinder system? What is their
social style (driver, analytical, amiable or expressive)? If your boss is a Christ-follower, do you know his or her spiritual gifts (leadership, mercy, teaching, etc.)?”
I explained that everyone must be a student of their boss and I urge them to read this 1980
HBR classic article, “Managing Your Boss.” In addition to a
12-point “Checklist for Managing Your Boss,” the article addresses the critical question:
“Is my boss a reader or a listener?”This
HBR article is a classic because the boss challenge is a classic. If your key people have given little thought to managing up, download the article from the
Harvard Business Review website. Or…read the expanded treatment of this subject—the 55-page book. (See above.)
CLICK HERE FOR BOOKS BY JOHN
On page 80 in the People Bucket chapter of the Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook, you'll find the chart, “Do’s and Don’ts for the Four Social Styles.” When working with Analyticals, for example, “DON’T rush things,” and “DON’T press for immediate action.”
NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to a new website here. New book reviews will also be archived at John Pearson’s Buckets Blog. Or, click here for John’s recent book reviews on Amazon.
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