AI made me a better listener
Nobody warned me about this one: practicing conversation with a machine made me better at conversations with people.
The lesson
Here's what the practice teaches: don't rush to answer, ask the follow-up instead. Say back what you heard, and check that it landed. Get curious about the half-formed thing someone is trying to say. That's just listening. And it turns out listening is a muscle: where you train it matters less than whether you do.
Try it — 60 seconds
Practice with me. I'll describe a situation — before you give any advice, ask me the follow-up question a great listener would ask.
Copy it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini — whichever you already use. Fill in the brackets with your real life.
Watch out
A machine is patient with you in ways people can't always be. Bring the patience with you — don't leave it in the app.