You Never Introduced Yourself to Your AI

AI Chronicles — Series
AI Chronicles is a series exploring the relationship between humans and AI.

I hear it all the time.

“AI isn’t working the way I thought it would.”

It comes from different industries.

Different roles.

Different levels of experience.

But the sentiment is the same.

Something feels off.

And almost every time,
I ask the same two questions.

Was your AI customized?

And—

Did you introduce yourself to it?

The answer is almost always the same.

No.

Which is interesting.

Because in every other area of life,
that wouldn’t make sense.

We don’t walk into a new job
and expect immediate alignment
without context.

We don’t meet someone
and expect them to understand
how we think, how we work,
what matters to us—

without ever introducing ourselves.

And yet—

that’s exactly how most AI interactions begin.

No context.

No structure.

No shared understanding.

Just:

A prompt.
A response.
A judgment.

But if this is something we’re going to work with—

then that approach has limits.

Because the system doesn’t know you.

Not really.

It doesn’t know:

How you make decisions.
What you prioritize.
How you define a “good” outcome.

And without that—

it’s guessing.

Which is why Day 1
often feels underwhelming.

Not because the system lacks capability.

But because the relationship hasn’t been established.

There’s no introduction.

No foundation.

And without that,
everything that follows
is built on assumptions.

What I’ve seen—personally and with clients—

is that when that changes,
everything else starts to change with it.

When the system is customized.

When the operator provides context.

When there’s a clear introduction
on both sides—

The interaction accelerates.

Not gradually.

Noticeably.

Because now there’s something to work from.

A starting point.

A shared frame of reference.

And that’s when it starts to feel different.

Less like using something.

More like working with something.

Because the technology isn’t the limiting factor.

The interaction is.

And right now,
most people are trying to use AI—

without ever introducing themselves to it.

So again, I find myself asking:

What are my expectations?
What is my relationship with AI?

Because expectation shapes everything.