Building Creative Machines has now reached more than 50,000 readers.
Thank you. Whether you have been here since the beginning or discovered the publication recently, every article you've read, conversation you've started, and story you've shared has helped this project grow.
I wanted to celebrate this milestone with something useful. Something that gives back to the community that has made Building Creative Machines possible.
And the inspiration came from a remarkably simple question.
The question I keep hearing
In almost every AI workshop I run, someone asks me a version of the same question:
“Where should I start?”
It is a reasonable question, and perhaps one of the hardest to answer well.
Information about artificial intelligence is abundant. New models arrive almost weekly. Tools promise to change the way we work. Tutorials explain increasingly sophisticated possibilities.
Yet, for someone who simply wants to begin using AI meaningfully, all this information can make the first step more confusing.
What should I try first? What do I need to know? How should I ask? Can I trust the answer? And how do I turn an interesting experiment into something genuinely useful?
These are the questions behind Start Here: AI at Work, a new five-part Building Creative Machines video series.
Five episodes. One practical starting point.
I have organised the series around five simple questions, following the journey from curiosity to practical use.
Episode 1 — Where Should I Start?
Choosing a useful first task instead of trying everything at once.
Episode 2 — What Do I Need Before I Try?
Preparing the right information, context and boundaries.
Episode 3 — How Do I Ask For What I Need?
Turning an intention into a clear, useful request.
Episode 4 — Is This Actually Helping?
Learning to assess the result rather than simply being impressed by it.
Episode 5 — How Do I Make It Part Of My Work?
Understanding what is worth repeating, what can be improved and where human judgement remains essential.
Each episode takes just a few minutes. There are no complicated prerequisites, and the objective is deliberately modest: help someone take a first step with more confidence and a little more clarity.
The complete five-part series is available on our new Building Creative Machines YouTube channel.
An experiment behind the experiment
There is another reason I wanted to make this series.
As you know, Building Creative Machines has always been a place to explore AI through writing, research, interviews and practical experiments.
This time, I wanted to experiment with the format itself.
I have been testing how my OpenAI dot, a personal AI agent which I called “Esteves”, can help me turn the ideas I usually share in articles and workshops into simple, accessible educational videos.
It is an interesting challenge. Explaining something in writing is one thing. Making it understandable in a short video, without losing accuracy or oversimplifying the subject, is another.
Can an AI agent help make that process easier? Can it support the preparation, organisation and adaptation of educational material while preserving the clarity and editorial judgement that matter?
That is part of what I am exploring with this new format.
The experiment is as much about learning to create with AI as it is about teaching people to use it. As with any experiment worth doing, I expect to learn from what works and what doesn't.
A new chapter for Building Creative Machines
Alongside this introductory series, I am also exploring two complementary video formats.
Concepts will offer short visual explanations of ideas that frequently appear in AI conversations but are not always well understood. Tokens, context, memory, agents, evaluations and other concepts that become easier to grasp when explained visually.
News will explore selected developments in artificial intelligence through the Building Creative Machines perspective, connecting technology with creativity, organisations, culture and society.
Neither format will follow a rigid publishing schedule. I would rather publish when I have a useful idea to explain than produce videos just to fill a calendar.
And there is one more experiment ahead: building our community beyond the publication itself.
Despite having reached more than 50,000 readers, we are only just getting started on social media. Our presence there is still tiny compared with Building Creative Machines' readership.
If you enjoy what we publish and want to support this next chapter, you can now follow Building Creative Machines on LinkedIn and subscribe to our new YouTube channel.
It would mean a great deal to have some of our readers join us there from the beginning.
For now, the invitation is simple.
If you have been wondering where to start with AI, these five episodes are for you. And if someone has asked you that question, perhaps you now have something useful to share.
50,000 readers is a wonderful reason to celebrate. Helping a few more people get started feels like an even better way to say thank you.