“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
– John Culkin

AI is changing business, government, scientific research, exploration, society and even humanity as a whole. Recent discussions in the OODA network have been examining how AI is impacting those many threads with an eye for what it means for decisions today. One key question we have been contemplating is how AI will shape us as individuals. A useful framing for this is the concept of the AI-Native, the person born into the age of GenAI.

This borrows directly from the term Digital Native, which was coined by Marc Prensky in 2001. His concept of digital native resonated with us for its clear articulation of how students at the time were in an educational system that was not designed to teach them.

We are now in the age of AI assistants and agents, tools that are extending our abilities in untold ways. Generative AI is different from all other technologies in history because for the first time we have a technology that is changing what it means to be human.  It is already doing things to us that we are not prepared for. It is changing how we produce products and how we cooperate and compete with others.  It can set goals, can follow those goals, can learn as it goes, can scale. It is a profound shift between humans and machines and how they interact. 

Machines are evolving from being our tools to our teammates.

And our youngest are growing up with this! They are AI Natives!

Defining the Birth of the AI-Natives

The generational boundary for AI-Natives can be sharply demarcated: those who began primary school in the same academic year that ChatGPT went mainstream. ChatGPT was launched on November 30, 2022, and by early 2023 had become the fastest growing consumer application in history with over 100 million users. Thus, the AI-Native generation comprises children who entered kindergarten in Fall 2023 and beyond, born roughly between 2017 and 2018.

Key Dates:

• AI-Natives Born: ~2017–2018
• Start Primary School: Fall 2023
• Start College: Fall 2035
• Enter Workforce: 2039–2040
• Eligible for U.S. Congress: 2045 (age 25 in House, age 30 for Senate)
• Eligible for Presidency: 2053 (age 35)

From Digital Natives to AI-Natives

Marc Prensky’s “digital natives” quickly set themselves apart in education, work, and culture through a keen ability to leverage digital tools. Today, AI-Natives stand even further apart: they are not merely consumers of digital media but creators, collaborators, and interlocutors with AI.

Consider the timeline:

• 2001–2015: Digital Natives dominate; internet and smartphones become ubiquitous.
• 2015–2022: AI assistants (Alexa, Siri) enter homes.
• Late 2022: ChatGPT launches, setting world records for adoption
• 2023–2025: Parents introduce their children to GenAI enabled tools. Schools pilot generative AI tutors, children converse with bots to learn, write, and create.
• 2025-2035: Students progress with AI experiences
• 2039: The AI Native generation begins to proliferate across business, academia, government. The world is theirs now.

The AI-Native Advantage and Risks

AI-Natives will lead sectors spanning business, government, science, art, finance, entertainment, and even interplanetary exploration. They will not only be equipped to manipulate digital environments but will fluidly blend intuition and analytical thinking with real-time collaboration from intelligent systems.

Opportunities

• Education and learning become highly personalized and interactive
• AI augments creative process, expands research and entrepreneurship
• Decision-making enhanced by instant, data-driven analysis

Risks

• Exposure to synthetic content, misinformation, and bias
• Potential erosion of critical thinking if AI tools are over-relied upon without robust guidance
• Novel ethical and privacy dilemmas in business and government

Preparing the Generation to Lead

Those raising, teaching, and mentoring AI-Natives must rethink education, leadership, and policy. We must:

• Foster AI fluency and ethical literacy.
• Prioritize critical thinking and human judgment in curricula.
• Invest in resilient, adaptive frameworks for business, government, and science

The responsibility falls on today’s leaders to safeguard not just technical skills but the human values and strategic acumen that will help these young citizens thrive in a world transformed by intelligent machines

Conclusion: Leadership for an AI-Native Era

The rise of the AI-Natives signals a profound societal and technological shift. Their journey will be shaped by how well we prepare them to use AI as a tool for progress, not a substitute for human creativity, ethics, and leadership. Their story is just beginning, and our role as mentors, policymakers, and visionaries will determine how brightly their generation shines.

Recommendations:

The essence of what you need to know about AI is that success requires leadership, and leaders should maintain a fluency in the key concepts articulated here. We track these on a daily basis. Ensure you are on distribution for the OODA Daily Pulse for current updates.

We capture more recommendations in our long form research at:

• The Executive’s Guide to AI – OODA’s reference for decision-makers.
• When Artificial Intelligence Goes Wrong – By studying issues we can help mitigate them
• Artificial Intelligence for Business Advantage – The reason we use AI in business is to accomplish goals. Here are best practices for doing just that
• What Leaders Need to Know About the State of Natural Language Processing – Major improvements in the ability of computers to understand what humans write, say and search are being fielded. These improvements are significant, and will end up changing just about every industry in the world. But at this point they are getting little notice outside a narrow segment of experts.
• Artificial Intelligence Sensemaking – This is a master list of the OODA Network’s most relevant research and reporting on the business impact of AI.