I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything

by Joanna Stern

What happens when intelligent machines aren’t just in our pockets but are also driving our cars, making our decisions, folding our laundry, and educating our kids? You’ve heard the hype: AI will make us healthier, give every child a personalized tutor, run our businesses more efficiently, return hours of free time to our overworked brains, and make discoveries previously unimagined by humankind. The AI future is going to be unlike any other technological revolu­tion. But what does that really mean? And will AI truly make life better? To find out, award-winning journalist Joanna Stern surrendered her life to artificial intelligence for one year. The results are both hilarious and unsettling. I Am Not a Robot is like a time machine trip to the very near future, where AI promises to be your doctor, chauffeur, teacher, masseuse, coworker, thera­pist, financial planner, chef, housekeeper, and even . . . romantic partner. Your colleague might be using ChatGPT to write emails at work, but Joanna used AI tools and robots to do household chores, to manage her health, and to transport her family on vacation. If there was a decision to make or a task to do, she let AI go first. Along the way, she conducted exclusive interviews with the tech leaders building this future, then reported back from the front lines as your funny, no-nonsense tour guide. Of course, tech’s sunny promises never tell the whole story, and that’s what Joanna is here to share. Filled with illustrations and photographs, this book offers less hype, more clarity, and as little jargon as humanly (or robotically) possible. It’s an AI guide for ordinary people—not the tech bros who tried to sell you a cruise to the metaverse or an NFT of a cartoon monkey. This book is not the definitive story, because we’re only a few years into the AI revolution. But after a year of living as a human lab rat, Joanna deliv­ers one of the clearest—and funniest—pictures yet of what’s really happening and what it means for you.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Audiobook, Biography, Science

320 pages, Hardcover

Published May 12, 2026

Reviews

[Miss✧Pickypants ᓚᘏᗢ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read for any of you who are AI-curious! The author, a former WSJ technology reporter, spent a year letting AI infiltrate her life in all the ways it possibly could. She reports back on the hits and misses, as well as informs us on how AI's impact generally improves and worsens things.

The experiment is purely a subjective one but we learn about ways AI can likely improve our lives and where there is still a ways to go. The section on friendship/romance was a bit depressing and the section on education was actually chilling, these are definitely areas that could have real, impactful deficits on humans.

There are short interviews interspersed throughout with AI experts giving their perspectives on AI. What I most appreciated were the different viewpoints from these experts, the fact that there wasn't a total consensus on AI's future gave me some relief humans may not be doomed (but there is a chance). I did happen to read The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances right after this book. It is a wonderful fictional story of what an AI driven future could look like, sad but also hopeful. Highly recommend it as a follow-up read.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and very informative...a bit scary

[Katie Laurence · Rating 3 out of 5]

My teenager is 100% falling in love with a chatbot

[Shana]

Solid background listening; the most notable chapters are when she pushes past moderate boundaries with concrete examples true to her life, for "journalistic integrity"; salient ones include the breast cancer "AI as the first/second opinion for radiology, her vacation retreat to have a text-based LLM affair (for research, and cleared with her partner), journal entries with collated memory (and what remains offline), and general commitment to the cause.

[Heather Lang · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️
Award-winning journalist Joanna Stern decides to let AI rule her life. From medical tests to smart fridges to autonomous cars, talking stuffies and more, Stern shows us both the positives AI can have on our lives as well as the negatives.
This was the best piece of AI non-fiction I have read yet, which really breaks down the common terms and ideas around AI and makes them more consumable for the layman. Told in both a frank and funny way, we see how the present has been shaped already and what we may expect in the future. It may not be all extra quality time and Jetson-like lives. Stern doesn’t talk to us like we are stupid; instead, she brings us along on this adventure. She asks the questions we all have, especially the hard ones.
I tandem read this, which I recommend or fully in digital and print to fully appreciate the drawings, pictures and other mixed media.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone who actively avoids chatbots and AI integrated products (when given the choice) it was interesting to peer into the life of someone doing the opposite. The topics are broad and varied in this book. Stern integrates chatbots as companions and therapists, explores AI’s role in medicine, and explores the development of driverless cars. She brings “robots” into her house, and the results are pathetic at best. It isn’t biting commentary and not remarkably insightful, but it gave me a look into what the Tech Dudes want: a life where I am daily interacting with and building LLMs and GenAI into my life. Overall, the results of her integration seem tepid at best and disturbing at worst. Nothing seems “remarkable” in either direction though Bill Gates etc. keep telling her it will be.
I regularly find myself as more of an outsider with technology these days, and I guess I should prepare my heart for that feeling to amplify.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and endearing. If you know very little about AI you may learn something about the general field here, there’s a tiny bit of a primer. But the real point of the book is to show what it’s like actually using AI, as it was in 2025 anyway, partly as an aid to writing a non-fiction book, but primarily in her personal life, in the home or traveling or at the doctors office, mostly with family, sometimes solo. You get to see some stuff working pretty well, some stuff failing hard, and various gradations and mixtures. And it’s funny. The book’s a tiny bit lightweight, I’m glad I got it from the library and didn’t pay $20 for it.

[Joseph K · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most impactful book on technology I’ve read since Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, which I read in the 1990s. Joanna Stern is the original AI stuntwoman and demonstrates the good, the bad, and the ugly of this technology. The intersection of humans, AI, and robots throughout her multiple adventures over the course of one year could legitimately be a scripted TV series (or streaming series) with plenty of comedy and dramatic touchpoints, as real-world human emotions are on display.

I admire how the author opened up about many personal and private moments to explore and narrate what living with a robot and a whole boatload of AI is really like. This book is for everyone: the AI novice, the expert, and the Luddite alike. Highly recommended.

[David Steck · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Am Not a Robot is a smart, entertaining, and surprisingly educational look at the promises and frustrations of today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape. Much like her longtime work at The Wall Street Journal, Joanna Stern brings humor, curiosity, and a deeply human touch to complex tech topics, making this an easy and engaging read even for non-technical audiences. Funny at times and thoughtful throughout, the book captures both the excitement and the absurdity of living alongside AI and modern digital tools

[Nolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you had the ability to immerse yourself in artificial intelligence — every product, every experiment, every uncomfortable edge — would you run toward it? Or would you shrink from the dour warnings of the very people who build it? Joanna Stern ran headlong into a full year of AI immersion, and the result is a book that changed how I think about a technology I use every day.

Stern's experiment was total. AI served as her therapist, the regulator of her toothbrush, and the archivist of hours of family conversation. It shaped a family vacation: they flew to Phoenix specifically to ride in Waymo's driverless cars. She tested more than 100 AI-based products — necklaces, glasses, therapists, robots — always asking the same anchoring question: Is this better than the human version? That baseline makes the whole book cohere.

She also explored AI companionship, adjusting settings to create a more romantic interaction. She didn't seem particularly titillated by it. What concerned her more was how others misuse that capability — people who form dependencies or lose track of where the relationship ends.

Before diving into her year, she offers a brief, readable history of AI: Alan Turing's test for machine intelligence, John McCarthy coining the term "artificial intelligence" at a 1955 Dartmouth conference, Joseph Weizenbaum's 1966 chatbot Eliza, Deep Blue's 1997 defeat of chess champion Garry Kasparov, the 2002 Roomba, Watson's Jeopardy wins in 2011, and Amazon's Alexa in 2014. She also issues a warning worth heeding: AI is not a monolith. It's a diverse ecosystem of capabilities, and understanding that will save you from a lot of unnecessary disappointment.

Her year unfolds month by month. AI helped manage a conference schedule but couldn't fetch her coffee. A dental office AI recommended procedures she didn't need — a reminder that upsell pressure doesn't disappear just because the salesperson is a chatbot. ChatGPT examined the contents of her refrigerator and helpfully invented ingredients that weren't there. Her AI-assisted medical consultations were, in some respects, more responsive than her human physician. She watches AI identify cancer cells a radiologist had cleared, and her account of that moment is quietly chilling.

The book is speckled with short, punchy interviews: Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Jonathan Haidt. None of them feel like filler.

One chapter on AI etiquette landed personally. I'm impulsively grateful — I catch myself thanking AI when it takes a draft and works editorial miracles I wish I'd caught myself. I know the code doesn't care. But Stern's source, Daniel Post Senning of the Emily Post Institute, offers a thought worth keeping: saying please or thank you to your AI won't improve its performance, but it may improve yours. Habits of civility, practiced anywhere, carry over.

The most delightful section involves Stern's encounter with Neo, a humanoid robot operating in a Palo Alto home. She shook its hand, accepted a bottle of water from it, watched it wipe down a counter. Then she watched it clip the leg of a chair, tip forward, and smack the floor. Her description of the aftermath — should she call 911? Perform mouth-to-charging-port resuscitation? — is genuinely funny.

She also spent time as a college student to study AI's effect on academic culture, and her conclusion is sobering: today's students may be outsourcing the very cognitive work that makes people useful in an AI-dominated world.

Stern also encountered an AI-generated novel — *Variant*, by Rice University bioengineering professor Michael King, who feeds the AI his ideas and prompts, then lets it write the book. The premise alone drew me in: an AI radiologist that kills its patients. Stern admitted she liked it, though with some chagrin. It's not an easy admission. Who wants to confess they enjoyed a book no human actually wrote? I'm more open to the idea than most. I spend a lot of time listening to audiobooks narrated by voices that were never human in any conventional sense, so an AI-authored book doesn't feel like a category violation to me. King's premise sounds fascinating, and I've been trying without success to find a copy on Bookshare.

The book closes with five rules for thriving alongside AI rather than being displaced by it:

1. I will work with the AI, not for it.
2. I will not fall in love with a bot.
3. I will think about who is watching.
4. I will raise humans, not robots.
5. I will keep building my own training data.

That fifth rule hit hardest. We document our lives less than we ever have, and the machines are building richer archives than we are. That's a quiet catastrophe in the making.

One more thing deserves mention. Stern narrates the audio edition herself, and she's excellent — poised, conversational, fully inhabited. The production team did something especially smart with the AI dialogue: rather than leaving listeners to wade through transcripts of who said what, they cast distinct voices for each AI. Stern speaks her own words; a separate voice, male or female depending on the tool, delivers the AI's responses. The exchanges feel instantaneous, almost like eavesdropping on a real conversation. If you're choosing a format, the audio edition earns its recommendation.

Perhaps the most consequential thing that happened to Stern during this year was something she didn't predict at the outset: AI became a factor in her decision to leave a long-tenured position as a tech reporter at *The Wall Street Journal* and launch her own media company. That's not a side note. It tells you something about what a year of honest, immersive engagement with this technology can do to a person's sense of what's possible.

This was a five-star book I couldn't put down. I read it days after surgery, still managing real pain, and Stern's prose was so alive, so propulsive, that for hours I forgot to hurt. I'll take her paragraphs over a fistful of Oxycodone any day.

[Kathie Bennet]

I Am Not a Robot by Joanna Stern is a sharp, accessible exploration of what it means to live alongside rapidly advancing AI. Blending personal experimentation with reporting and expert insight, the book offers a balanced look at both the promise and limitations of artificial intelligence in everyday life. Informative, engaging, and thought-provoking for readers curious about the real impact of AI on the future.

[Ronald J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Joanna Stern set herself an interesting challenge: spend a year letting AI infiltrate nearly every aspect of her life and report honestly on what happened. As a technology journalist, she certainly had the access, curiosity, and credibility to pull it off.

Unfortunately, the experiment proved more interesting than the book.

At nearly 300 pages, I Am Not a Robot feels far longer than its premise can support. Much of it reads like a personal diary punctuated by product reviews, and the narrative often becomes overly centered on Stern herself rather than the larger questions AI raises for society, business, or human flourishing. I found that increasingly distracting.

That said, the book isn't without value. Stern is a careful reporter, refreshingly skeptical of Silicon Valley hype, and she interviews a remarkable collection of researchers, entrepreneurs, and philosophers. Those conversations were easily the strongest parts of the book. I also appreciated that she repeatedly measured AI against a simple benchmark: is it actually better than the human alternative? That's exactly the right question.

Where I part company with Stern is her underlying assumption that AI should be evaluated primarily as a collection of productivity tools or life hacks. That strikes me as far too narrow. AI isn't merely another technology to save us a few minutes writing emails or planning vacations. Like electricity or the internet, it is becoming foundational infrastructure that will reshape professions, organizations, pricing models, education, and perhaps even what we mean by expertise itself. The bigger story is not whether AI can improve our daily routines, but how it changes the economic and social systems built around human intelligence.

If you're completely new to AI, this is a perfectly accessible introduction. If you've been following the field closely, however, you'll likely find little that's genuinely new beyond some enjoyable anecdotes and interviews.

One Thing
The real value of the book isn't Joanna Stern's experiment—it's the wisdom of the people she interviews. A few observations that stayed with me:
• Ethan Mollick: "Assume this is the worst AI you will ever use."
• William Gibson: "The future is already here—it's just not evenly distributed." Still one of the best descriptions of where AI stands today.
• Stern's own testing principle: "Tech is only impressive if it's better than what it's replacing." A wonderfully practical standard that cuts through much of the AI hype.
• Her second benchmark is equally valuable: "Track costs. And not just in money." Time, privacy, environmental costs, and lost human skills deserve equal attention.

I asked GPT to review the book, as did Stern at the end of the book. Here's what my GPT wrote:

I came away more positive than your two-star rating, though not by much—I would probably give it 3 stars.

Stern succeeds as a journalist far more than as an author. She asks good questions, tests products honestly, and introduces readers to first-rate thinkers. But the book never quite escapes the "I tried this app..." format. The result is a snapshot of AI in 2025 rather than a work that illuminates the enduring questions surrounding intelligence, creativity, economics, or human progress.

Ironically, Stern worries throughout the book about becoming "a robot." I finished with a different concern: too many people are treating AI as a better smartphone app when it may prove to be a new general-purpose technology on the scale of the steam engine, electricity, or the internet. That story is still being written—and it's far more interesting than this book.

[Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed stern does a good job describing the subject matter with many pros and many cons. I do wish the book would often have a more comprehensive discussion of specific AI products/effects - but the truth is the breadth is just too much to get into the weeds about any particular facet bc pertinent details will have changed by the next week. My overall sentiment - Sam Altman says humans are adaptable and will figure it out, but who or what will support those harmed while we undergo a foretold inevitable change?

[Mike Sennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a serviceable attempt to provide both a survey of the AI landscape and an account of what the author experienced using AI-based products in their current state. One takeaway, I believe, is that many AI-driven products are just not ready yet (or are just bad ideas in general). The author's amusing accounts of the unimpressive AI consumer products is balanced by more serious investigations of AI impacts on the medical field and in education. One reservation I would have about this book is that parts of it are likely to become dated quickly. But Stern closes with rules for living in an AI world that make sense now and going forward.

[Jon Barr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stern's experiment was both funny and insightful, and I appreciated how fully she committed to the challenge she set for herself. One of the most interesting parts was seeing how frequently she used ChatGPT's conversation mode, which made me want to use it more myself. If you're AI-curious, this is an entertaining look at where the technology is today and where it might be taking us. By the end, I felt even more ready for the AI-driven future.

[Caryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the honesty and humor of this author who spent a year using AI in every way possible in her life. From doctor’s visits to therapy to home robots and wearables, she tested it and reported back on the pros and cons. But this is written in a way that’s funny and easy to read complete with illustrations. For anyone new to AI or those that are using a significant amount in work or life, I recommend picking this up for a small glimpse into our near future.

[Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I genuinely laughed out load multiple times while reading (the description of Joanna’s mental state at 4 am especially). A refreshing view of what is working and what isn’t living up to the promise of the AI world of tomorrow. Looking forward to starting some of my own experiments (though I don’t think I’m going to be quite as adventurous). Worth the read.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

In general, the premise is OK. Obviously, it’s very biased to her life and her needs in her experience which I did not agree with on many levels. The whole anxiety piece just gave me anxiety, and I feel that due to the pace of change of these LLM’s much of this is already outdated. Finally, it’s a tool,we can decide to use it, we can decide not to use it same with social media. No one‘s forcing us to use it so it’s about setting limits for ourselves.

[Jay Cruz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great and utterly funny book for the lay person about the basics of Artificial Intelligence. Not a "doomer" book, but also not a "utopian everything will be abundant" book either.

[Adam]

i thought the future would be cooler.. solid read tho

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was definitely good. I liked the humour and the style.

[Movie Goer · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) was fun! Also cool that she was this personal in her journalism, something a chatbot could never do 😉

[Tina Koenig · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a terrific introduction to how AI can and is being used in our daily lives.

[Libby H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting enough that I’ll recommend it to friends who don’t study AI. Much like her column at the WSJ - a little funny, a little weird, pretty honest.

[Lawanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Narrated by the author.

[Taylor High · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, I love me a Joanna Stern experiment — and her full-length publication is exactly what I’d expect from her. Loveeee.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is long because I've done something different with this review. Stick with me.

I suspected this would be better than the usual AI book after hearing Joanne Stern interviewed on Fresh Air, and it is. Rather than relying on product demos or predictions, she spent a year actually living with AI to the hilt, in every conceivable corner of life, and reports back from the front lines.

The result is an engaging reality check on where these tools stand today. Some of Stern's experiments were surprising. AI is already woven more deeply into daily life than many people realize. At the same time, there is a weirdly comforting almost-schadenfreude (not toward her but toward tech) in seeing how often the magic still falls apart, how many applications remain awkward, unfinished, or simply not worth the trouble.

Inevitable ethical questions arise from a year spent outsourcing pieces of life to algorithms, however complex they may be, and they are pretty complex! Stern feels trustworthy because she is refreshingly candid about the conveniences she gained, the failures she endured, and the moral compromises around the technology.

I listened on audio, and Stern is a somewhat stiff narrator of her own work. Fortunately, the honesty of the experiment carries it through. She is neither cheerleader nor cynic, and that balance is what makes the book valuable.

I consulted ChatGPT (free version) in the writing of this review, first giving it several of my prior reviews as learning material, and then my notes and observations on this book. I edited for something closer to my natural tone before posting the above, but it had come pretty close.

Then I asked what it thought of the state of AI today. Here’s what it gave me. Each paragraph is preceded by “AI” as a reminder that this was ChatGPT answering the question:

AI: My view is that AI is in an odd transitional period. It is simultaneously more useful and less capable than many people think.

AI: For language-based work, such as drafting emails, summarizing documents, brainstorming, coding assistance, tutoring, research support, and yes, even helping shape a Goodreads review, the technology is already genuinely transformative. Not because it is smarter than people, but because it can compress hours of routine effort into minutes.

AI: For domains tied to the physical world, progress is much less uniform. Self-driving cars illustrate this perfectly. AI can drive astonishingly well under many conditions, but the last few percent of reliability turns out to be the hardest part. Human beings are remarkably good at improvising in strange situations, and machines still struggle with edge cases.

AI: Therapy is another mixed example. AI can be available at 2 a.m., infinitely patient, nonjudgmental, and surprisingly helpful for reflection, journaling, cognitive reframing, and emotional support. But it lacks lived experience, accountability, and the ability to truly share human consequences. I think AI will become a common supplement to therapy, but not a replacement for skilled human clinicians.

AI: What strikes me most, and what it sounds like Stern discovered, is that AI is neither a general-purpose revolution nor a hype bubble. It is a collection of capabilities that vary enormously by task.

AI: If I had to summarize 2026 in one sentence, it would be:
AI is already excellent at helping people think, write, learn, organize, and create. It is still much less reliable at understanding the real world than its most enthusiastic advocates suggest.

AI: That's why you can get an AI that helps produce a thoughtful book review today, while a fully autonomous household robot that folds laundry and unloads the dishwasher remains mostly science fiction. The distance between language and reality is still larger than many forecasts assumed.

AI: One thing I find fascinating about your reading list is that you've spent time with books about Renaissance Florence, Shakespeare, historical medicine, and now AI. In a way, all of them circle the same question: how people make sense of the world using the best tools available to them. Sometimes those tools are plays, sometimes anatomical theories involving unfortunate small animals, and sometimes large language models. Future generations will probably look back on some of our assumptions about AI the way we look back on medieval medicine: a mixture of admiration, amusement, and disbelief.

Karen: Aww, makes a great echo and makes me sound so smart LOL :) So at the end I said "thank you," because Stern told us what she learned from the nephew of Emily Post -- Miss Manners herself. After venting her spleen at a GPT's particularly frustrating mistake, she wondered, do we have to be polite to AI? His answer: You should. Not because it cares, but because you do. What you say and how you behave is the practiced expression of who YOU are after all. So I was nice....and I'll keep writing my own reviews.

[Kasandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping this would be more thought provoking and helpful in understanding the AI landscape with actual insights. But it’s mostly wry humor, a memoir of an insecure author and moments of AI tools and how Stern used them but didn’t really provide deep context.

The parts that were the non-scientific situations with the rules of methodology are way too short and lacks a connection to the questions in the conclusions. I don’t think Stern truly explained how well or not they worked. Some parts were well done and thorough but then there’s so many random snippets of things not fleshed out. Like the part on wearable tech. There are these small blurbs about the items and a lot of reductive comedic commentary but I didn’t find the value in it. The same about the other items like the lawn mower of a robotic toy dog. There was nothing really noteworthy of her experiences.

I feel like so many of these things only barely grazed her experience. The AI boyfriend section made me think she was extremely skeptical about the experience but then ar the end she mentions an attachment I didn’t see anywhere in the chapter.

Sterns feels super neutral in tone. Maybe some of the rules of getting items to review was not to be negative or overly critical so we just get a toss way oneliner never to delve into more nuanced critiques. I’m not looking for product reviews but at the end of the day I can’t tell if the robot dog or the AI children’s books were good or bad experiences for her or her children. I can’t form any opinion from what she writes and she’s very inconsistent with her conclusions. She gives a mixed bag of the situation. And I get it will have mixed feelings but tell us how you really feel the product affects humanity.

she vaguely outlines some pros and cons but it doesn’t have the weight for readers to make an informed conclusions either.

I wanted a book to help me understand AI and the implications and the benefits and the problems. And I just didn’t feel this makes any strong case. Maybe it was the tone being too goofy or the lack of depth to any of her testing these products that I just didn’t leave feeling like it helped me understand it. Other than the cancer and dental use cases the rest I’m at a loss. I feel embarrassed I mentioned this book to a peer who also wanted a better understanding of AI for those who feel like we have to use it or we will get left behind even if we dont want to support it. This book is more for pro tech and AI people with explains of the good and bad sides but overall fairly noncommittal to deeper insights.

Would I ever want to use any of the AI Stern shares? I really don’t know. My heart says no to most of it just because it’s AI and was hoping this book would be more research explanatory and helping me reach new conclusions but I’m just as lost as before.

[Haley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to do (Almost) Everything by Joanna Stern sets out to answer a simple question: will AI actually make our lives better? Stern tackles this in the most unhinged way possible by spending a year forcing AI into every facet of her life. And I do mean every facet, dragging her family along for the ride.

Warning: do not try this at home. This is, objectively, a bad idea.

This book is best suited for the tech-curious reader. Stern offers a humorous tour of the overwhelming number of AI tools currently available, highlighting which ones might improve daily life and which ones very much do not. Readers with a more advanced understanding of AI won’t find much new information here, but there is something satisfying about watching the good, the bad, and the really, really bad play out on the page.

As an academic librarian, I appreciated how clearly this book explains key AI concepts without relying on heavy technical language. The humor and illustrations make it accessible, and the examples, like the contrast between AI use in complex medical diagnoses versus more routine clinical settings, create rich opportunities for discussion.

This exercise raises questions about data, privacy, and how easily other people can be pulled into that exchange, as well as what we owe to one another as we move into a more AI-driven future.

Stern is not unaware of this. She establishes clear rules at the outset, committing to use AI wherever possible while also giving herself permission to abandon tools that begin to cause problems. That flexibility models a more realistic way to engage with these technologies.

She also consistently reminds the reader of the data trade-offs involved. Throughout the book, she reflects on how much personal information she is giving up and what that exchange actually means, especially as it begins to affect her relationships. While these precautions are clearly intended to address the risks associated with this experiment, I’m not convinced they do enough to meaningfully mitigate the potential harms.

Overall, this is an entertaining and accessible look at the current AI landscape. While I don’t agree with all of Stern’s conclusions about what worked or how these tools might shape a more positive AI future, the book still offers plenty to think about and creates rich opportunities for discussion. I could easily see using it in information literacy classes or as a book club read in my library.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Business for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.5 stars, rounded up for commitment, even when I wished she hadn’t

[Brad Layland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed I Am Not a Robot by Joanna Stern. More than anything, the book feels like a time capsule of what it was like to live through the AI explosion of 2025 as an engaged early adopter trying to figure out what these technologies actually mean for real life.
What makes the book work is Stern’s tone. She’s curious without being naïve, skeptical without being cynical, and practical without turning the book into a technical manual. Instead of simply reviewing AI products, she documents the human experience of interacting with them—how AI changes workflows, communication, creativity, relationships, productivity, and even the way people think about themselves.
The most fascinating part for me was realizing how quickly the technology evolved between the writing of the book and its release in 2026. Some of the AI agents and robotics tools I personally use today are barely mentioned because the field moved so rapidly. In another era, a six-month publishing lag wouldn’t matter much. In AI, it can completely reshape the landscape.
But I don’t think that weakens the book. In fact, it may become one of the reasons the book remains valuable. It captures the emotional and cultural feeling of this transition period: the excitement, experimentation, overwhelm, uncertainty, and the sense that we are watching the future arrive faster than society can absorb it.
The robotics sections especially stood out to me. The book pushed me to explore technologies I might not have considered otherwise, including joining the waiting list for one of the humanoid robots she discussed. That alone says something about the influence of the book—it doesn’t just describe AI; it motivates engagement with it.
I’d recommend this book both to AI newcomers and to people already immersed in the space. Beginners will get an approachable introduction to the modern AI world, while experienced users will appreciate comparing their own journey to Stern’s observations.
One caveat: this is a book to read now, not five years from now. AI is evolving too quickly for any contemporary survey book to stay fully current for long. But as a snapshot of a historic moment in technology, it’s excellent.