The Three Realms of Using AI.

Wang Guowei said there are three realms in studying, and the same applies to AI.
First Realm: Last night, the west wind withers the green trees,
Alone I climb the tall building, gazing endlessly at the road to the horizon.
You just started using AI.
Ask it a question, and it gives you an answer.
Faster than Baidu, more accurate than Google, you feel great.
But essentially, you're still searching.
Ask and leave, with no accumulation.
Every time you open the chat, it’s like the first time meeting.
You are consuming AI.
No different from ordering takeout — after eating, it’s gone.
At this stage, 90% of people stop here.
Second Realm: Clothes gradually loosen, yet I do not regret,
For her, I become haggard and exhausted.
You start to feel something’s wrong.
You realize AI is not just a tool for answering questions,
But a colleague who can help you do work.
You begin feeding it data, tuning prompts, building workflows.
You ask it to help write drafts, organize materials, analyze reports.
You spend time training it, it spends time serving you.
But there’s a fatal problem:
It has no memory.
You spend three hours perfecting a workflow,
Next time you open the chat, everything resets.
You have to teach it again who you are, what you want.
Like a colleague with amnesia forever.
Very capable, but with zero memory.
You are producing, but with a ceiling on efficiency.
Third Realm: Among the crowd, searching a thousand times,
Suddenly turning around, that person is in the dim light.
One day, you suddenly realize:
The problem is not “what I ask AI to do,”
But “what AI does for me.”
You start giving it memory. Giving it initiative. Giving it rules.
It no longer waits for your instructions — it finds materials, organizes them, and notifies you automatically.
It remembers your preferences, your lessons, the pitfalls you’ve encountered.
It is no longer just a tool, but a partner with judgment.
You shift from operator to decision-maker.
You only need to specify the direction, and it handles execution and tracking.
What is the essence of this realm?
From consumption → production → assets.
First realm, you spend time to get answers (consumption).
Second realm, you spend time building systems (investment).
Third realm, the system runs automatically, and you reap the results (assets).
Most people complain “AI is just so-so” at the first realm.
A few discover “AI can really do work” at the second realm.
Very few experience “AI is working for me” at the third realm.
The difference is not in AI’s ability,
But in what you treat AI as.
When it’s a search engine, it is a search engine.
When it’s a colleague, it’s a co-pilot.
When it’s a partner, it’s an extension of your cognition.
What realm are you in?