I remember how we talked about COVID-19 in early March 2020. A far-away problem. Something on the news from Wuhan, sad but distant. It was something we scrolled past on the way to football scores. We joked about it. Your kids were in school, you were going to restaurants and shaking hands and planning weddings. A virus in China. Not our problem.

ALSO READ: Why Rwanda&039;s seat at the global AI table matters for Africa

Then on March 14 the first positive case was confirmed here. A week later, the country was on lockdown. The first full lockdown in the region. Your office closed, your kids came home. The markets emptied. Meanwhile an aunt in the family WhatsApp group appointed herself the Minister of Health, forwarding cures, she was certain that hot water and lemon would finish the virus in two days. The thing we scrolled past walked into our living rooms and rearranged the furniture.

ALSO READ: From policy to people: Rwanda’s real AI test

I keep thinking about that season, because I am watching us make the same face at AI.

Right now, for most people, AI is "the virus in China”. A Silicon Valley thing. Clever robots in a lab far away, nothing to do with the shop in Nyabugogo or your comfortable job. We joke about it. We scroll past. And I understand why. It is hard to fear something that arrives quietly, with no siren.

ALSO READ: Using AI to empower teachers, protect every child

But if there’s anything we learnt from the COVID period, it is that the people who suffered the least were the ready ones. The restaurant that learned delivery in the first week. The teacher who worked out how to teach online kept her class. The trader who already used mobile money barely felt the cash shortage. The tools were mostly here already. Irembo, MoMo, WhatsApp. Those that thrived were those who had bothered to learn it before they were forced to.

ALSO READ: Is AI threatening jobs or empowering Rwanda’s workforce?

AI is going to test us the same way.

Let me be practical, because panic helps no one and neither does denial.

First, stop treating AI as entertainment and start treating it as a tool for the thing you already do well. You do not need to become a programmer. If you are a good accountant, become one who does in an hour what used to take a day. If you are a teacher, let it draft the lesson plan so your energy goes to the children, not the paperwork. If you sell online, let it write your posts and answer customers at midnight. AI is a tool that you can use to multiply your skill.

ALSO READ: Are our children safe in this brave new AI world?

Second, learn it now, while it is cheap and the stakes are low. In 2020 we learned Zoom in a panic, badly, with the meeting already started. Half of us kept talking for a full minute before someone whispered "you are on mute." Do not do that again. Pick one tool this week. Use it on real work. Fail quietly now so you are not failing in public later.

ALSO READ: Kagame: Success of new commission on AI depends on public, private cooperation

Third, teach one other person. Your sister. Your employee. Your child. We got through COVID by looking after each other, not by hoarding masks. A country where only a few know how to use these tools is a country that will crumble when put to the test.

ALSO READ: Kagame says investing in Africa's AI solutions a win for everyone

I am not telling you AI is a plague. It is a powerful tool that can yield a great advantage if you know how to wield it. It is the most patient, cheapest apprentice you will ever hire, and it does not sleep. But like the virus, it does not care whether you were paying attention. It will change your work either way. The only choice you get is whether the change happens to you, or through you.

In 2020, the virus did not ask permission and it did not wait for us to be ready. AI will not either. The difference is that this time you were warned. So, the only real question left is embarrassing in its simplicity: what are you still waiting for?

The writer is an MIT-certified AI professional and the Head of Business and AI at Global Kwik Koders.