AI Literacy in Practice: Community Summit Roadshow

I had the opportunity to present on AI Literacy at the Community Summit Roadshow, organized by Dynamic Communities, at the Microsoft office in Arlington, Virginia.

The conversation around generative AI continues to evolve quickly. In 2025, much of the focus was on understanding the fundamentals: what large language models are, how copilots function, what retrieval means, where hallucinations come from. And that foundation still matters. But this year, the more pressing question is different:

What happens after you understand the basics?

Many professionals now have access to generative AI tools in one way or another. Many are using them daily, so access is no longer the differentiator. The real advantage comes from how work is structured around these systems.

That was the focus of the session: how AI literacy is evolving beyond vocabulary and into something more practical. How professionals are moving from using AI as a tool to designing how AI fits into their work. And what changes about accountability, role clarity, and judgment as that shift happens.

The focus and attention (and the great questions!) in the room reinforced something we continue to see across industries: the AI conversation is maturing. The focus is moving from novelty and tools to structure, responsibility, and design. The quality of the questions and conversation made this a valuable session.

One theme kept surfacing throughout: Human judgment doesn't disappear as AI systems become more capable. It moves.

Where it moves, and how professionals and leaders should think about that shift, is what I'll continue to explore.