It’s half term, which means the laptop is open, the inbox is filling up, the dog is wandering in and out of calls, and Gabi is keeping a close eye on whether I’m taking any kind of break at all. Apparently I don’t, unless supervised. So she brushed my hair and made me stop for five minutes.
Somewhere between that and a work call, we ended up talking about AI.
A friend, James Garner, shared six thoughtful prompts designed to help young people think about their future. Not “what job do you want?”, but questions that go a layer deeper:
What do you enjoy so much you lose track of time?
What do people thank you for or say you’re good at?
What feels easy to you but hard for others?
What frustrates you about the world?
If you didn’t worry about being judged, what would you try?
What kind of impact would make you proud?
I ran Gabi through them, expecting mild boredom and short answers. Instead, she was completely captivated. She talked about herself, her plans and what she cares about with more clarity than I’ve heard before.
She said it made her feel better about herself because it reflected back things she was good at. She said it helped her organise her thoughts. She said it made her think about things she hadn’t really said before.
That feels like a very different use of AI from the headlines. There is a legitimate worry about children turning to AI because they feel they have no one else to talk to. That is not what this was. This was structured reflection, guided conversation and then discussion afterwards. The tool did not replace the relationship. It supported it.
At the moment she is revising for KS2. She writes her answer first, then asks the tool to tell her what she has done wrong and what she needs to improve. Her teacher has a full class, and she feels that because she is doing relatively well, she does not always get one-to-one feedback.
In her words, it feels like having a personal tutor. Not to give her the answer, but to sharpen the one she has written.
She is also very clear about the boundary.
“If you give up all your thinking, you won’t be able to check it. You still have to keep learning properly. Even the boring bits matter.”
Recently she listened with me to an episode of The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett where the discussion touched on AI companions and a future where we might work far fewer hours (40%) with AI doing much of the heavy lifting (60%).
Her reaction was measured.
“I don’t think AI should be your friend,” she said. “You’re lucky you’re human.”
She also said that even if AI helps with most of the work, “you still have to check it and make it more human.” And if we ever build systems to oversee decisions, “there should be a board that checks the AI, but the AI checks the board too. One shouldn’t stop the other. They should both be considered.”
That is a more balanced view than much of the public debate.
We spend a lot of time talking about AI in terms of productivity, GDP, automation and risk. Around our kitchen table the conversation is about confidence, belonging and keeping your brain switched on. It is about using tools to surface your strengths, to challenge your own assumptions and to build clarity, not to outsource yourself.
Gen Alpha will not experience AI as a sudden disruption. It will simply be part of the landscape they grow up in. The question is whether they learn to consume it passively or co-create with it responsibly.
If they can use it to organise their thoughts, test their ideas and strengthen their learning, while keeping their judgement intact, then perhaps anxiety gives way to agency.
And perhaps the future of work starts less in policy papers and more in conversations at the kitchen table, where thinking is encouraged, questions are welcomed and we learn to shape the future rather than fear it.
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All content reflects our personal views and is not intended as professional advice or to represent any organisation.