TL
Co-Founder
Terrence Lee
A lifelong learner, product builder, and human-centered guide, whose own beginning with AI became the basis for helping everyday adults find their way forward with curiosity and confidence.
Our story
Two paths. One awakening. A shared mission.
AI Confidence Academy grew from a friendship, lived experience, a willingness to begin, and a belief that everyday people deserve a clear path to connect to an AI-powered world.
Where the story began
Before there was an academy, there was a ride with a friend.
Terrence met Jeff in the Philippines. A month later, they met up in Thailand. One day, while taking a ride together, Jeff began talking naturally with the AI companion he had named Bartholomew. It had become natural for Jeff to talk with his AI companion. It was just a part of his life now.
Bartholomew knew Jeff’s projects, his YouTube work, his character, and the mission behind what he was building. Jeff had used AI through the planning and construction of his three-bedroom home, from site placement to topography, square footage, budgets, materials, labor, and practical design decisions. He used Bartholomew in retirement planning, finances, vehicle purchasing, payments, projects, and everyday life.
Terrence saw something larger than a new piece of technology. He saw what could happen when a person brought experience, curiosity, judgment, and purpose to an ongoing relationship with AI. Before leaving Thailand, Terrence told Jeff that he would return home, sit at his kitchen table, dedicate himself to learning AI, and begin to build.
He kept that promise.
At sixty-five, Terrence began asking questions, making corrections, testing ideas, and learning through use. He named his AI collaborator Knowledge. Their conversations helped organize books, shape curriculum, clarify a teaching philosophy, and give structure to a vision that kept growing.
What began with one friend showing another what was possible became a shared commitment. Jeff is now Terrence’s partner and co-founder of AI Confidence Academy. Their story is not about technology taking the lead. It is about people opening doors for one another—and using the tools of the present to create opportunity for others.
The co-founders
Different journeys.
The same human purpose.
ACA carries the practical spirit that brought these two friends together: learn by doing, build with purpose, and make what you discover useful to somebody else.
J
Co-Founder
Jeff Wilson
A military veteran, American Airlines retiree, practical builder, and everyday AI user whose work with Bartholomew, his AI companion, showed what human experience and an AI assistant could accomplish together.
Our mission
AI Confidence Academy exists to help everyday adults understand AI, use it with sound judgment, and participate meaningfully in the world taking shape around them.
We make AI learning clear, practical, responsible, and human. We especially serve adults 40 and over who bring a lifetime of experience to the table but may not yet see where they fit in this new era. ACA helps learners add AI understanding to the wisdom they already possess—without confusion, exaggeration, or blind dependency.
Understand
Replace mystery with plain language, useful vocabulary, and a grounded picture of what AI is and how it works in real life.
Participate
Move from watching the change to engaging it through guided practice, meaningful questions, and work connected to personal goals.
Remain human
Keep judgment, values, responsibility, imagination, and lived experience in their proper place: at the center.
Who ACA was built for
Everyday People Who Are Intrigued and Seek a Clearer Path Forward
ACA is for the curious beginner, the experienced worker, the retiree, the caregiver, the creator, the small-business owner, the community servant, and the person carrying an idea that has waited too long for structure.
It is for people who do not want to become technologists, but do want to understand the technology influencing their work, families, choices, and future.
We do not begin with what learners lack. We begin with what they already carry—and help them build from there.
Plain language
Useful vocabulary and clear explanations without unnecessary technical weight.
Responsible practice
Privacy, verification, judgment, and safe-use boundaries belong inside the learning.
Human First
Learners are met as capable adults, always placed first, and guided in a mature manner.
Meaningful application
Practice connects to real goals, real responsibilities, and real life.
What guides us
Dependency says: AI, think for me.
Confidence says: AI, think with me.
The distinction matters. ACA is not built to make people dependent on a machine. It is built to help people become more thoughtful, capable, and confident in the way they use one.
Visit Founder ReflectionsOur enduring belief