Generation AI: Why Generation Alpha and the Age Of AI Will Change Everything

by Matt Britton

A clear, practical guidebook to being a parent and professional in a world transformed by AI

In Generation AI, lifelong entrepreneur, futurist, and consumer trend expert Matt Britton explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping society, from consumer behavior to education, work, relationships, and health. As the first generation born into an AI-enabled world, Generation Alpha will experience a paradigm shift in lifestyle and career paths. Britton examines the unprecedented opportunities AI personalized learning, advancements in healthcare, and automated consumer experiences and processes. Britton also confronts ethical and societal challenges, from privacy issues and economic disparity to the potential impact on mental health and job displacement. Balancing optimism with caution, Britton offers a forward-looking guide for leaders, parents, and individuals on how to navigate a future where AI drives cultural and economic transformation.

Generation AI explores timely topics

Consumer AI-driven, personalized shopping and the role of the creator economy in capturing mindshare Exploring the future of education and the need for learnings to reinvent itself from a curriculum centered on memorization to one focused on problem solving and creativity Work & A deep dive into the AI powered developments driving disruption in the workplace and uncovering the skill sets needed to thrive Mental Health & Examines AI's potential to both connect and isolate, impacting human interaction. Ethics & The need for AI guardrails to protect privacy and ensure fairness amid rapid technological advances. Generation AI is a comprehensive and highly practical guide for all individuals looking to future proof themselves in this brave new world—especially Millennial parents, who are raising the first AI generation, grappling with the disruption of AI in their own lives, and seeking to understand the next stages of our technological evolution.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published May 6, 2025

Reviews

[Hazel Hamlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is too optimistic for the "great" changes artificial intelligence will bring. Matt, I don't think, fully understands how TikTok behaves or newer social media behaves in general. The problem with artificial intelligence and TikTok, for example, is that everyone is the same and AI brings more to the table. The rise of TikTok has encouraged people to be similar, too similar. We have lost what makes us specially unique, spend our time scrolling rather than writing an essay, etc, etc. AI can write the essay in 10 seconds max, and you can casually browse through and ask to humanize parts, change things, etc.

But, when Matt said: "...only 37% of Gen Z teens trust news organizations...", hm... I wonder why. Maybe it's due to the fact that a lot of Gen Z is breaking out of the bubble of being solely reliant on news channels, and the news channels aren't reporting news that isn't a big event besides breaking news.

Some of his comments are quite out of touch and weirdly worded. "Parents waiting nearly three years later (and growing) to have children from just a few decades ago means three more years of tequlia bottles over milk bottles and trips to the Bahamas over trips to Target." (104 - 40 Is the New 30). This is a ridiclous statement. Why would a young adult want to have a child when they could be subjected to the dangers of the current world? How can a young adult afford today's cost of living when wages haven't gone up, but prices have? How can they retain a job when AI enthusiasts dream of a future where AI can take your job?

Another point Matt brings up is AI-based therapy. Uhm, what? He quotes Allison Darcy, CEO of Weobot, who says, "If you're not by the side of your patient when they are struggling to get out of bed in the morning or at 2:00 am when they can't sleep, and they're feeling panicked, then we're leaving clinical value on the table." (113 - Love and Friendship in an Increasingly Artificial World). The whole point of therapy is for people to get better, and soon, be able to do it on their own. Yes, it sucks not having someone by your side when going down mental spirals that you can't seem to unwind from. But, will the first "person" people who need help think of is their online chatbot? Is replacing human connection with AI the best decision? I think not.

AI will never, I seriously hope and believe, take the jobs of lawyers or creative professionals, like he mentioned on 128 (Charting a Path Forward). Simply letting AI take control of these HUMAN jobs, or even thinking it should, is an insult to the thousands and millions of lawyers who devote their life trying to help the people who need help. Whether it be in a court custody case or solving legal disputes through negotiations is a human job, because it requires empathy. A lawyer who works on a court custody case and has no empathy for the struggling mother/father who just wants their kid back from unsafe conditions/other, and is interested solely for the money, is no real lawyer at all. These creative professionals who make art, are making art for the artist, for you to think and go, "wow, that reminds me of..." not for you to see some soulless AI art of Donald Trump as the head of the Catholic church and go "wow... reminds me of..." because it doesn't remind you of anything relevant! Art takes time and hard work, through many trials and tribulations, through many failures and defeats, it comes out strong or weak. But, that's art. A robot with no brain, no connections to the heart, and no mind of its own, just what its programers decided it should say is just a robot. Not a marvelous tool to embrace, not something to talk with about your struggles, a robot. We should encourage face-to-face interaction and build confidence for people to talk to REAL people.

Also, I can't believe you used AI for this book. Why? When I heard this book took you 6 months to make, I laughed. I thought I was reading an AI generated book. You could not go for the work to find the sources to make your book completely your own? You used AI to keep 95% of your original writing, but "optimized" it for "fluency and comprehension"? Why should anyone be bothered to read something you couldn't be bothered to do yourself?

This review may sound dismissive, but I can't let people think AI is the solution and that Gen Alpha will embrace and use this to optimize the world. We need to fix our problems at the core before relying on "tools" to replace us. I want to think, I want to write, I want to research and study, by myself. Not with an AI tool asking me if I want to summarize two paragraphs into two concise sentences that almost always leave out key ideas, I don't want to relax knowing jobs are being taken along with mine. I want to live and breathe as a human with other humans, not human with robots.

[Matt Britton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am admittedly biased as I wrote it but I am hoping that everyone who takes the time to read it themselves gets real value from Generation AI. The world is changing so fast and I a committed to helping parents and professionals future-proof themselves by truly understanding the implications of the age of AI.

[Amram G · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author came to a work event and gave out a bunch of free copies of this book. Many of colleagues dismissed the book as trash before even reading it, but I read the whole thing cover to cover, so I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt is trash.

Don't get me wrong, I love bad books, but this wasn't even bad in an enjoyable way. So much of this books feels like filler just to make sure the book has a certain thickness once it was printed. Most of this writing is so lifeless it barely evokes any emotion at all. Before I go into a detailed review, I'll give a TL:DR list of what makes this book bad at a glance.

1. Most of this book is boring
2. crappy images that don't matter or give more information
3. Improperly edited and has basic grammar/spelling errors.
4. Poor composition skills. The book is poorly organized and he doesn't go as far towards selling his vision as he could.

Note: If Goodreads let me I'd give it 1 and a half stars, but I'll round down for this one.

Like I said before, I like bad books. I usually read books by political personalities that make wild claims and eventually contradict themselves in one way or another, but this was the first bad book I wrote that wasn't explicitly political. That's not to say the author or the thesis of the book are centrist. By reading the book I can tell that Britton at the very least is a fiscal conservative. Which if fine. But remember his political leaning because I'll bring it back at the end of this review.

The first thing I want to address is that Britton is not a very skilled at selling AI to the layman. This book is a sort of speculative non-fiction. Where you have a technology that's tangible enough to be real, but new enough that you can wish and dream about its uses like it's Star-Trek or something. This is an interesting genre because you can really let your imagination run wild, and Britton's imagination can barely crawl outside outside the confines of what already exists.

The book aims to explain how AI and its gen alpha power users will change the world, but many examples of what AI can do are things that AI is already doing in one form or another. Like he can talk about how generative AI can make videos and potentially replace actors, but when he mentions AI and religion, he offers very little ideas as to the possibilities in that space because there's not alot out there already. He could've at least mention you can talk to AI Jesus... or AI Satan. In a similar vein he'll sometimes just say something like "ah this thing we have already is pretty cool, but can you imagine how much better it will be with AI?" As if I'm already on the AI train and he doesn't have to explain how AI will make said thing better, because AI is just a magic word that means good so he's relieved of the rhetorical heavy lifting required to sell me on the idea. It's amazing someone with this little ability to communicate his points was paid to speak at my job.

Let's talk about the poor quality of the book overall. This shows up most with the images and figures. What will happen (in page 16 for example) is he'll cite a statistic, and point you to a figure in parenthesis. Then you look at the figure and it's just the same exact info, but with the damn stonks arrow going up. I shouldn't be telling you this, but you don't just throw images and figures into a book so the five-year-olds don't get bored, they have to actually ADD SOMETHING! They're also bad because some of the figures that try to look like real graphs have barely any X or Y labels. Just bars and numbers.

This was particularly frustrating in chapter 13 where he links to a study that talks about increasing retail sales in the beginning of the 2020 panorama. The books uses a crappy bar graph, but I looked into the source, (The actual source, not the one his AI made up) and the study it comes from has an actual line graph. You could just copy the line graph. However, he asked his AI to make a graph for him and it spawned that abomination that rests on page 161.

Another thing to marvel at is how poorly organized the book is. AI and religion is about 3 or 4 chapters away from AI an heaven. he puts the negative chapter on negative parts of AI into one big chapter instead of spreading those points throughout the book. This was because he asked ChatGPT what his book was missing and then decided to jam that chapter in at the last second instead of thinking to rearrange the order of the book properly. There are first-time erotica authors self published on Amazon with more coherent books than this, and this was published by Wiley Press!

It's not exactly full of them, but there's also plenty of grammar/usage errors I'm sure a competent copyeditor would catch, but Mr. Britton used Grammarly AI to proofread his work, so he's left with glaring issues like ending a paragraph with a comma on page 111, or the big spelling mistake on page 169 "they have no baking locations" when talking about neobanks.

I also looked into a few of the footnotes and both of the ones I looked into have something wrong with them. Click the spoiler if you wanna see the results of those investigations.

Chapter 11 pg. 124
Britton says that Deloitte cut labor expenses by 80% and time costs by 50% using AI, but checking the PDF linked at the footnote we don't see Deloitte making the claim that this is happening at their company. These numbers are barely showing up at all. The closest thing I can see is the report mentions with high investment in AI, companies can maybe expect to save about 32% in works hours.

Chapter 13 pg. 160
Britton cites a statistic that claims e-commerce's retail sales shot from 16% to 27%. now this seems to be true, but his perplexity search referenced the source at "https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/reim..." Try plugging that into your browser and see what happens. I tried checking the Y combinator blog and the article wasn't there either, but I did a google search and found a substack article with the same title as the source written by someone that works at ycombinator. That article links to a page by GA Agency that supports the statistical claim made in the book, but the AI made up the link completely.


The Message Trigger Warning// Death/Suicide mention
Now I wanna take some time to address the message of this book, because it claims to be a guide for Gen alpha and their parents to understand the coming world of AI and how they can make the most of it, but that's not who this book is for. If you wanna know who this book is for, look no further than the Growth Engine.

In page 128 of chapter 11, Britton describes how he used the power of custom GPTs to make an LLM specifically designed to help boost sales at his company. This involved, against the wished of his legal team, uploading about 20,000 transcripts of customer calls into ChatGPT. He mentions how this took determination, technical literacy, initiative, and collaboration. While these are fine qualities to have, I doubt any gen alpha worker, no matter how hardworking, is going to be able to forge ahead with plan to build a custom AI against the wished of the legal team. That's a power purely reserved for CEOs.

That's who this book is made for. Two-bit tech CEOs that need that next push to increase profits and maintain the flow of investment capital. Business leaders that care only to raise profits without any care for the quality of the products they put out.

This book is a perfect example of that ideal. This book was completely made with AI through and through and the quality we get demonstrates what we can expect from future AI products. But that doesn't matter, what matters is a book was made. What matters is that Britton gets to go on speaking tours and touting himself as the next great evangelist on AI and gen alpha. The poor composition, grammar, and figures are unimportant because a product was made at a lower cost. And as our fiscally conservative friend constantly reminds us throughout the book, that's what's important. That's why isn't a book for the common man, but a book for the C-suite.

This book has no regard for the vast human cost this technology threatens to manifest. Very little concern for the millions of people that will lose their jobs in a society that requires everyone to work for food and money. The issue of reduced critical thinking and social skills amongst our youth are barely worth a mention. Little regard exists for the young alienated people that have lost their lives at the hand of AI-assisted suicide. To Britton and his intended executive audience, these problems are minor inconveniences that will work themselves out at best and the cost of doing business at worst.

Britton mentions how earlier technologies had doomsayers proclaiming it would cause the end of the world. One major example he brings up is Y2K and how so much hay was made about it then nothing happened. And maybe nothing happened for you while you were directing a platoon of broke college students to hawk cheap t-shirts on campus, but Y2K was an actual problem and people actually worked to solve it. They didn't just say "oh, well Y2K is coming, hope that's not too bad." But you're so invested in AI for its financial benefits that you barely muster the time and energy to even pretend like these are serious problems that should be addressed as the technology reaches critical mass.

One compliment I'll give this book is that a sliver of a good book exists in here somewhere. Ironically enough, it's the human parts of this book that stand out the most. The autobiographical sections where he talks about his previous life as a marketing exec; when he introduces the education section talking about his own troubles with the school system; and talking about what it felt like to witness his dad be a penny pincher despite making plenty of money as a lawyer. Most of this book is forgettable Linkedin speak, but these sections actually stood out and stuck with me as a reader, and I would imagine they're the sections least touched by AI since he's pulling from his own life experiences.

I think if the rest of this book was written in a human manner like these parts, it would be much better. Your heart really isn't in it for most of this book. You kinda half ass your explanations and rely on the reader to fill in the gaps you don't fully address yourself. However, those autobiographical parts of the book were the most engaging of the entire book.

I wanted to end this review on a nice note, but then I remembered that some data center polluting the air of a predominately black neighborhood sucked up unimaginable amounts of clean water to help Britton write this piece of crap. the climate crisis was being supercharged as Britton asked LLM tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Grammarly for help fine-tuning this barely readable junk. You coulda spent 30 minutes in your room just mashing away at the keys and made something better than this heap. Yet you relied on AI tools with exorbitant power requirements to make something worse.

Generative AI has done nothing but make the world a worse place. And for all the human, environmental, cognitive, and social damage it's done, the best you could make with it was this shitty book.

[Hannah Fathi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written, no real critical analysis, and unsurprisingly written with heavy use of AI (the lack of research is evident).

[Kristin Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been talking about this book nonstop since I started it, Generation AI by Matt Britton is packed with relevant takeaways that keep coming up in conversations about education, leadership, and the future of work.

Gen Alpha will be AI natives…they won’t know a world without it. That shift changes everything. Britton asks, How do we ensure AI enhances rather than diminishes human potential? and reminds us, Don’t lose sight of what makes us human. That line really stuck with me.

One stat that hit hard: 85% of the jobs in 2030 don’t exist yet. How do we educate future leaders for a rapidly changing world when our system still relies on outdated textbooks and centuries-old beliefs?

Another great question: If AI handles problem-solving methodologies, should we focus instead on identifying which problems need solving? That one flipped a switch for me. This a mindset shift we need to make now.

Britton also talks about “chatting with your data” and why we have to move from “Can I AI?” to “Should I AI?” And the quote I can’t stop repeating: Omitting AI in a 2025 classroom is like teaching future farmers without acknowledging tractors.

If you’re thinking about where we’re headed, how to prepare students, teams, or even yourself, this book is definitely worth the read.

[Jocelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s an easy read in the sense that the book does not go to too deep into the technicalities. Instead, it gives a good overview of how this is yet another wave of tech innovation, like how we went through the www, dot come era, then the iPhone, mobile era, the social media influencer boom, and now the AI which may change the way we live in a profound way.

This book started with a foreword written by Claude (an AI tool by Anthropic), being prompted by the author to evaluate the book and provide her (in my mind Claude is a lady 👸) opinion.

Few key things that jumped out.
With AI capabilities, the traditional way of learning that relies on memorization and regurgitation of information is no longer a desired skill, as that’s what AI can easily do in the future.

AI will also make a bunch of knowledge worker jobs obsolete, unfortunately. Research by the world economic forum says that 42% of all workforce tasks will be fully automated by 2027 😮‍💨. That’s 2 years from now!!! Jobs that the author specifically called out are customer service associates, legal and accounting services, creative professionals and software engineers.

Maybe building a career in sport is not a bad idea after all

[Jack Ticknor · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I offered you the chance to read a book that predicts the future and gave you tools to think about it, would you read it?

Whether pro-AI, an AI-naysayer, or someone who doesn’t know anything about AI - at minimum this book is an extremely interesting take on what our future stands to hold for all of us.

Matt poses questions that cause the reader to think deeply about what the future may hold, and what the reader wants their role to be in this future.

I appreciate his honesty in self describing as an optimist and acknowledging that the pessimist perspective may be underplayed.

While I think some of his takes may be a bit to optimistic, I am a firm believer that AI will shape the future and if you ignore this book and neglect to see the impact of AI, you may struggle more than those who at least read the book and entertain the ideas brought up.

All in all, an interesting, thought provoking, easily digestible read that touches on the fundamental aspects of what it means to be human and how AI interacts with that.

[WiseB · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, a Generation X member and self-proclaimed expert in consumer research and new media strategies, presents his views on how AI is expected to influence and reshape consumer behavior across different generations—namely Generations X, Y, Z, and Alpha. He places particular emphasis on Generation Alpha (born between 2010 and 2025), predicting that they will be the first generation to enter the workforce in a world where AI is fully integrated into daily life.

His forecasts explore AI’s impact from various perspectives, including media, household dynamics, healthcare, parenting, education, careers, and even relationships such as love and friendship. However, these predictions should be taken as personal opinions. Members of Generations Y, Z, and especially Alpha may not agree with many of his predictions. Depending on how the effects of AI unfold across different generations, the resulting cause-and-effect cycles could lead to outcomes that diverge significantly from his expectations.

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author assumes that because these kids and teenagers (oldest age of Gen Alpha is 15) CONSUME a lot of media, they must also UNDERSTAND everything they consume. As a teacher of teenagers, I can tell you that this is simply not true. The author uses Chat GPT output as a footnote source for his claims, so that should tell you how well-researched this is.

When the author asserts that these children are "an evolved version of the human species," I had to close the book in disgust.

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are new to AI this book is perfect for you. Great history and facts describing its evolution. I’m not new to AI and have many of my own bots and train others on how to maximize their time and energy with AI. I didn’t learn anything new.

[Ginny Yurich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots to consider with this one about the coming (and already here) world of AI!