A just-departed executive at one of the world's most influential wellness companies is giving three pieces of advice for preserving our humanity in the AI age.

• David Ko, who was CEO of the app Calm for the past four years, recently stepped down to pursue a new, undisclosed path focused on guardrails for kids using AI.

"If we didn't have AI, I would not leave," Ko said in an April interview with Axios' Amy Harder at the Palo Alto headquarters of Calm, a couple of weeks after he announced his departure. "If we weren't having AI conversations today, I'd still be the CEO of Calm."

• Calm, founded in 2012, is a mental wellness app with more than 180 million downloads.

⚠️ Zoom out: Ko sees AI moving faster than social media, with potentially similar risks for young people. As a father of two daughters — a teen and a college student — that urgency is driving his pivot.

• "Let's not make that same mistake twice with something that's moving twice as fast," said Ko, who'll continue advising Calm's board.

Here's Ko's advice for using AI mindfully:

🧠 1. Protect your critical thinking.

• Don't accept the initial output from an AI model. Two reasons: You'll get better results. And you'll protect your own mind.
• Referring to his younger daughter's AI use, Ko added: "She'll go a few rounds and push back on the AI tool."

Zoom in: Even if AI delivers instant answers, kids still need to learn how to think their way to them.

• Ko said critical thinking should be treated like physical education — good for its own sake: "Isn't it good for children to exercise? Of course it is. So why is it good to give kids all the answers?"

⏱️ 2. Be intentional with your "found time."

• AI is making people more efficient at a rapid pace, which makes the time savings more visible.
• Sometimes you should use that time to do more work, but it shouldn't be the subconscious, reflexive answer.
• ✨ "If you find yourself saving time, then find yourself doing things that give you joy," Ko said.

🔁 3. Skip the big talk — go small.

• "I find often that people try to have the one heavy conversation" with kids, Ko said. "I find that rarely works."
• Instead, he suggests frequent, low-stakes conversations — often sparked by what kids are already seeing, like a TikTok about AI.

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Axios CEO Jim VandeHei sat down with his son, James VandeHei Jr., to go deeper on the Politik app — the side hustle we introduced you to a couple of weeks ago.

• 🏛️ James, 21, a rising senior at High Point University, teamed up with friends to build the nonpartisan app, which helps Americans better understand Congress. It now includes a news feed.

James talks with his dad about why he built Politik, and how he used AI to do it.

• Watch their chat ... Download Politik ... Read James' story.