Remember February 2020? Most of us were living our normal lives — going to restaurants, planning trips, shaking hands when we met people. A few people were whispering about a virus overseas, but it sounded overblown. Then in about three weeks, the entire world changed in ways none of us could have imagined a month earlier.
Matt Shumer, founder of an A.I. startup who has spent six years inside the industry, believes we are sitting in that exact same "this seems overblown" moment right now. Except what's coming is bigger than COVID. And unlike COVID, you won't see it coming on the news. It will simply show up — quietly, quickly — in your kitchen, your living room, your doctor's office, and your grandchildren's school.
Here's what he wants you to understand.
This Isn't the Clunky A.I. You Tried Two Years Ago
If you tested A.I. a year or two ago and walked away unimpressed, you were right — at the time. It made things up. It got confused. It felt like a novelty.
That was two years ago. In A.I. terms, that's ancient history.
The models available today are unrecognizable from what existed even six months ago. Most people don't know this because they're still using the free versions, which are more than a year behind what paying users have access to. Judging today's A.I. by the free version is like judging modern smartphones by a flip phone. The gap between what people think A.I. can do and what it actually does right now is enormous — and that gap is the problem, because it's keeping people from preparing.
What "Powerful" Actually Looks Like Today
On February 5th, 2026, two major A.I. companies released new models on the same day. What happened next stunned even the people building these systems.
Shumer sat down, described an app he wanted built — in plain English, no technical instructions — then walked away from his computer for four hours. When he came back, the app was finished. Not a rough draft. A completed, tested product. The A.I. had built it, clicked through every button itself, found its own errors, corrected them, and only then said: it's ready for you.
That was his Monday morning. And he's not exaggerating.
Now bring that same capability home. Because that's exactly where this is heading.
How This Is Already Changing Home Life
This isn't just about tech workers or lawyers losing jobs. A.I. is quietly reshaping the way everyday home life works — and for people our age, this cuts close.
Your health. A.I. can now read medical reports, help you understand a diagnosis, flag questions you should be asking your doctor, and research your medications for interactions — in plain English, in seconds. For those of us managing aging parents, chronic conditions, or just trying to decode what the doctor actually said, this is not a small thing.
Your finances. Budgeting, understanding Medicare options, reviewing a contract before you sign it, making sense of a confusing insurance policy — A.I. handles all of it. You describe what you need in your own words and it walks you through it like a patient, knowledgeable friend who never makes you feel rushed or foolish.
Your home itself. Planning a renovation, getting a second opinion on a contractor's bid, troubleshooting an appliance, figuring out what's wrong with your car before you take it to the shop — A.I. is becoming the most useful resource in the house, available 24 hours a day.
Staying connected. Drafting a heartfelt letter to a grandchild. Planning a family reunion. Writing a eulogy. Helping a grandkid with homework in a subject you haven't touched in 40 years. A.I. doesn't judge the question. It just helps.
Your passions. That book you always said you'd write. The family history you've been meaning to document. The recipe collection you want to preserve. The garden plan, the travel itinerary, the memoir. The barrier to doing those things — time, skill, knowing where to start — is largely gone now.
Here's why this matters beyond your home: the world your children are working in is changing faster than most of them realize. And many of them don't have someone close to them sounding the honest alarm.
Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic (who makes Claude) — one of the most respected and cautious voices in the entire A.I. industry — has publicly predicted that A.I. will eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within one to five years. Legal work. Financial analysis. Writing. Customer service. Software engineering. Medical review. Not someday. The capability is arriving now, and it's coming for every field that happens on a screen.
The people who will come through this best are the ones who start engaging with these tools now — not to replace their judgment, but to multiply what they can do with it. The managing partner at a major law firm who Shumer spoke with spends hours every day using A.I. — not because it's fun, but because it performs like having an entire team of associates on call. He told Shumer: every couple of months, it gets significantly more capable. He's not panicking. But he is paying very close attention.
Your kids deserve to hear this from someone who loves them before they hear it from a headline when it's too late to get ahead of it.
One Simple Place to Start — This Week
Get the paid version of Claude (claude.ai) or ChatGPT. It's $20 a month. Don't use it like a search engine. Use it like a capable assistant who actually knows things.
Ask it to explain your Medicare supplement options in plain English. Have it help you plan a trip. Give it a confusing document and ask it to summarize what it means for you. Ask it something you've been embarrassed to ask anyone else. You may be quietly amazed at what happens.
One hour a day experimenting with A.I. will put you ahead of 99% of the people around you. Not an exaggeration. Almost nobody is doing this yet. The door is wide open — but it won't stay that way long.
The future is already here. It just hasn't knocked on your door yet.
It's about to.
This article was inspired by and adapted from "Something Big Is Happening" by Matt Shumer, published February 11, 2026 on LinkedIn. Matt is the founder of an AI startup and one of the clearest voices writing honestly about what's actually happening inside the A.I. industry right now. His original article — which goes much deeper into the career and geopolitical implications — is well worth your time. You can read it here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/something-big-happening-matt-shumer-so5he
Full credit for the research, insights, and original framework belongs entirely to Matt Shumer.
One final note: this rewrite — tailored for the AI for Daily Living audience, restructured, and focused on home life — was completed in under 4 minutes using Claude, Anthropic's A.I. The silly image at the top was created using ChatGPT's image generation feature in less than 2 minutes. It took me about 15 minutes to proof and edit this entire post. That's not a boast. It's the point. What used to take hours of writing, editing, and rethinking now takes minutes. This is the world Matt is describing. You just watched it happen.
