From Retail to AI: Pattern Recognition Across 50 Years

My first job in tech was in a lumber yard. Seriously.

My first job in tech was in a lumber yard. Seriously.

It was 1972. I was stacking two-by-fours and counting inventory.

My job was to spot patterns.

Which items were running low? Which suppliers were slow? Which seasons drove which sales?

I didn't call it data analysis back then. But that's exactly what it was.

Fast forward 50 years.

Now I teach Artificial Intelligence.

And here's what surprises my students every time:

AI doesn't do anything magical. It finds patterns.

That's it. Patterns in data. At massive scale. At incredible speed.

When I look at an AI model's output, I ask the same questions I asked in 1972.

What is this telling me? What's missing? What doesn't look right?

The tools changed. The thinking didn't.

If you've spent years solving real problems in the real world, you already have the most important AI skill.

Pattern recognition.

The rest is learnable.

Want to start learning? 👉 https://agileaidev.com/resources/ai-tips-and-tricks 👉 https://agileaidev.com/courses

What pattern-recognition skill from your past career helps you most today? ⬇️

#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Agile #SoftwareDevelopment #AgileCoaching