How I AI

How a 14 Year Old Student is Building with AI at Alpha School

• Brooke Gramer • Season 1 • Episode 44

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I sat down with Ali Romman, a 14-year-old freshman at Alpha School in Austin who’s already using AI like a co-founder. He’s vibe coding an MVP in public and building an AI-powered tool that helps people design and buy the right gaming PC, even if they know nothing about computers.

This conversation is a real look at what kids are facing right now: AI in schools, cheating vs learning, what guardrails actually work, and why the new “gap” isn’t access to tools, it’s curiosity, initiative, and how fast you can learn.


Topics we cover:

  • AI isn’t “coming”, it’s already in the classroom: what that actually looks like day-to-day
  • Cheating vs learning: where Ali draws the line and why boundaries matter
  • College and how AI is changing the value of traditional education
  • Vibe coding a real MVP: how Ali’s building a PC configurator + chatbot
  • Building in public at 14: confidence, pressure, and learning at startup speed
  • Fail fast mindset: getting beta testers and feedback instead of guessing forever


Tools, Platforms, and References Mentioned:


Who this episode is for:

  • Founders and builders who want a glimpse of what the next generation is actually doing with AI
  • Parents trying to navigate “should my kid use AI?” (spoiler: they already are)
  • Educators and school leaders thinking about ethical AI policies and real guardrails
  • Anyone who needs proof that you don’t need permission, credentials, or a CS degree to build now


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"How I AI" is a concept and podcast series created and produced by Brooke Gramer of EmpowerFlow Strategies LLC. All rights reserved.

Ali:

I think at the end of the day, the gap between people will just always be how Intelligent or how, you know, poised or like how entrepreneurially forward they are. And that's the sort of thing that you can only get by educating yourself. I would say right now I plan to go to college, but that could change just depending on how easy it is to learn college level things, not in college.

Brooke:

Welcome to How I AI the podcast featuring real people, real stories, and real AI in action. I'm Brooke Gramer, your host and guide on this journey into the real world impact of artificial intelligence. For over 15 years, I've worked in creative marketing events and business strategy, wearing all the hats. I know the struggle of trying to scale and manage all things without burning out, but here's the game changer, AI. This isn't just a podcast. How I AI is a community, a space where curious minds like you come together, share ideas, because AI isn't just a trend, it's a shift, and the sooner we embrace it, the more freedom, creativity, and opportunities will unlock. Today I sit down with Ali Romman. He's 14 and he's already using AI like a co-founder. He's vibe coding, testing ideas fast, and building an AI powered chat bot that helps people design and buy the right gaming pc. We chat about school work and assignments in the age of ai, how he's building his MVP. We also talk about guardrails in the classroom because the question isn't, should kids use ai? They already are. The question is, what does ethical use look like? What should be off limits and what skills still matter? If you're a founder, a parent, or someone trying to stay current in this AI era, this episode is for you. Alright, let's dive in. Hi Ali. Welcome to How I Ai I'm so happy to have you here today. How are you doing?

Ali:

I'm doing good. Uh, excited to do this podcast. This is the first one I've done. Um, thank you for having me.

Brooke:

Well, it's an honor and pleasure to be your first podcast. I'd love to open the floor and let you introduce yourself. Could you share a little bit about your age, what grade you are in school, and what you're working on right now?

Ali:

Yeah. Um, so my name's Ali Romman. I'm a 14-year-old and I'm a freshman uh, in high school at Alpha High in Austin. And I'm currently working on a project where I make a PC configurator and it's a little AI chat bot you'll talk to it. It'll ask you easy questions that anyone can answer, whether you know about computers or not. And then at the very end, it'll come up with a part list for you. We'll build the PC for you and then you get the perfect custom PC for you, and all you need is 15 minutes of time.

Brooke:

That's incredible. I'm trying to think back at what I was doing when I was a freshman in high school, but it certainly wasn't building businesses. When did you first start to learn about ai? What really pulled you into it? At such a young age.

Ali:

Yeah, so it was about 2022, uh, chat GPT had just released. No one really knew I. About AI yet? Parents didn't know. My family didn't know. And it's really only like tech people knew about it. As part of a school project we had to recreate a, I guess a court case with fictional characters. Um, Mine was, uh, Harry Potter Voldemort for the killing of Voldemort in the first book. And I was on the pro prosecution, so I was trying to, uh, put Harry Potter in jail. And part of the thing was they had to write the whole script, so what the witnesses would say, all that stuff. And I really wasn't looking forward to it. It was a lot of typing, it was a lot of writing and honestly um, really that fun to do all of that. So I asked my teacher like, is there any way that I don't have to do this? And he was like, yeah, have you heard of ChatGPT? You can use that. And I had no idea what ChatGPT was. So he showed me. And he asked Chacha BT to generate a script and it was like magic and the words just appeared on the screen and it was really interesting and crazy. and I remember thinking like of all the possibilities that were with that when you could have a robot doing human thinking. And it was super interesting that is why I kind of. Uh, got invested in ai.

Brooke:

Well, I have to ask who won the court case.

Ali:

Uh, yeah, so I won. Because in Texas there is a law where um, allowed to, uh, kill someone if invade your house, essentially. And that was what Voldemort was doing. He was invading Harry Potter's home at Hogwarts. So in the state of Texas, which is where I live it was legal, so I managed to win through that.

Brooke:

What a fun and fictional way just to role play and use ChatGPT to help you with a lot of the legwork. What happened when you started to realize that this a tool called Chat g PT could help you build things from an entrepreneurial perspective. When did you start to plan around businesses?

Ali:

Yeah. So one of the first thoughts that I had with chat GPT was can I just like tell it to make me a million dollars? Like it's smart and. thought it was smart as a human right, and if a human could make a million dollars, then why couldn't an ai? So I couldn't do that back then. But but that was just kind of the sentiment I had was I knew that it was getting smarter, so I was like, eventually in five years, or 10 years or 20 years, whatever, it should be able to do that. And a few months ago. I heard about vibe coding, where you could code with ai. And coding has always, I guess, been something that I wanted to learn about, but seemed really complicated and daunting and I didn't wanna get into. And when I found out that AI could essentially convert the thoughts in my head into code without having to learn how to code. That felt like the next step towards, asking a, asking an AI to make a million dollars for me because it lowers the barrier of entry so much. So that was probably the first real thought.

Brooke:

Cool. So walk me through your current AI tech stack. What tools are you using to build your PC parts Chat bot and what are you exploring to vibe code with? I'm curious what you're using.

Ali:

Yeah. So I try to keep as updated as possible on models and their intelligence in different subjects and that sort of thing. So currently I'm using Cline, which is a AI extension on a VS Code. And, it's Cursor is the most popular vibe coding. It's very similar to Cursor. It's a little bit better and a little bit more expensive. It's more of a learning curve, but from what I've researched and like what my classmates who know more about coding tell me it's the best. And in terms of AI models, I am mainly using Claude, 4.5 opus. Um, Like now when we're recording this video, uh, GPT 5.2 hasn't come out yet, but I think it's gonna come out the next couple days. So I might switch to that. Then Gemini three Pro is also good for coding as well, but I think Claude Opus edges it out just a little bit. So that's what I'm using for coding right now.

Brooke:

Cool. How has AI changed the way you learn and experiment, as a student? If you could share a little bit more about how you use AI at Alpha School.

Ali:

Yeah, so I think Alpha is a very AI forward in, and AI first school. We use it in academic I guess contexts. Like I use Itri for writing. I'll write something and then I'll have an AI grade it as part of like our learning apps. You know, point out where we did well, where we didn't, where we were too casual or too formal. And it essentially does the same thing that a teacher would without that extra work. And it can also do it instantly instead of calling over a teacher to do it every single time. And then in the afternoons where we work on our project, like for me it's my PC project. Um, It's also very AI first. You'll be. Hard pressed to find someone who didn't spend at least 30 minutes talking with ChatGPT or Gemini or something every single day because it's just such a good way to get ideas or code and all sorts of things. So, it's very, very there and we get lots of advice on what to use and to use it and that sort of thing.

Brooke:

That's so fascinating to hear how you are all already adapting and integrating it. Could you maybe share a little bit more about the benefits you've seen so far from using ai, whether that's building the things you wanna build faster, learning faster, or just having more confidence overall to try new things.

Ali:

So I think the main benefit for me has been in building things with ideas and like ChatGBT, uh, and Gemini specifically. Like they've helped me a lot with ideas. I've been stuck a lot of times that I don't know what to do. And they really helped me reason out something so. The choice is still fully mine, but it's so helpful for figuring out what to do. So I would say that's probably the biggest part, that it's been useful in. And just also just help me get less scared of this stuff.'cause I think I kind of thought like a lot of people that, you know, would take over the world. But now I see that if you just know how to use it and understand how to use it you can still be like super successful.

Brooke:

I agree there is a lot of fear and anxiety when you are just getting started or just taking that first initial leap into beginning to learn ai. And that's really the mission behind this podcast is getting people over that hump

Ali:

Mm-hmm.

Brooke:

and expanding them with their peers. And I'm so happy that you listened to the podcast and, and found, you know, another high schooler on the show who inspired you to wanna be on the show. And so you mentioned being scared in the beginning. Have you had any other challenges that you've had while running into using and learning and building with ai?

Ali:

Yeah, so I think near the beginning, like a couple years ago when AI was just coming out, I really just wanted it to do everything. Um, it wasn't enough for that yet. And so I would like tell it to do something like pretty complex, even like models today struggle with, and not do it. And then I would just kind of write off AI as like a a gimmick, I guess. I think the most interesting part of AI is that like it gets smarter and smarter. You know, a lot of people are saying, you know, oh, AI isn't smarter enough for this. So that's a human thing that AI can never replace, but just as it gets so much smarter, smarter, I know things that people used to think are just human things AI will replace and that's something that I didn't really realize back then. Which is why I didn't use AI for, say about a year. It didn't do anything that I wanted it to do.

Brooke:

Yeah, I think that there, it's a muscle, right? You have to learn. It's a lot of trial and error. A lot of people think it's going to be this light switch of just, you know, to your point, alright, teach me how to make a million dollars. But it's getting to know it and learning how to prompt correctly.'Cause it is a robot, right? It is not a person and when you say, even when you say something so blatantly, it'll take you quite literally

Ali:

Yeah.

Brooke:

when you don't want it to, you know, just little innuendos like that. So thank you for sharing a little bit more about your experience. What about, how have your friends or your family reacted to your AI projects and usage? Do you feel like people are really supportive? Do you feel like a lot of kids your age are using it?

Ali:

So, uh, I think, uh, I'm at Alpha, which is a pretty AI progressive school. So, of the people there, like use AI, as much as me, or some even more. Um, I also have a lot of friends outside of Alpha. And they mainly use it as like a better Google, which I think is how a lot of people use it. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. Most of how I use AI is like a better Google. There's certain things that you can do with AI that I think a lot of people don't know. Like, you know, my friend wanted like a website for something. I forgot what it was. It was like a super simple thing. And I told him like, you know, just AI to make it for you. And it was simple enough that AI can make it pretty easily. And the thought that had just not ever really crossed his mind. So I think outside of Alpha it's thought of more as like a better Google. Within my family though, my dad he knows a lot about AI and we often talk about it and it's really fun. So he's like always learning more about that stuff and when we come home we'll like talk to each other about it, you know? Did he hear that Gemini came out, the new model or whatever? My sisters also go to Alpha, but they're younger. And they don't use it as much because of the things that they're doing right now are trying to, guess, help them learn. And AI is at that stage more of like a cheating tool, if that makes sense. And then my mom feed doesn't really know anything about ai. She thinks it's cool. And I think a lot of people don't have any problem with it, but, they're intimidated maybe but like she's learning more about it. So I'd say overall I live in a pretty AI forward ecosystem. Yeah.

Brooke:

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Ali:

Yeah. So I think that you should never use AI in replacement of your decision making, and a replacement of your knowledge? Maybe. So if you don't know how to code, right? Uh, using AI to code is fine, like, if you're trying to, I don't know, have like relationship trouble or something know, with your friends or your family or like a partner or whatever I don't think should help with that because that's essentially taking away that sort of emotional decision making from you, which will hinder you. But when you're vibe coding, you still have to use like critical thinking and all that stuff to make sure that the, a AI knows exactly what you want. So cheating would be something, so if you're trying to come up with an idea for a speech, for like a school project or something. I think that needs to come from your own words to train yourself. Because if you use AI your whole life then once you get to the more advanced parts of ai, you're not really gonna know how to do it well because you just won't be as trained in being human in order to be good with ai.

Brooke:

So what I'm hearing you say is aI shouldn't be used for, you know, a learning moment where you're actually in that position of learning and not be used to take away from thinking of your own thoughts

Ali:

Yeah.

Brooke:

versus, it being more of like a teaching tool and helping you maybe structure things and, and put things together. That makes sense. And so how do you set those boundaries for yourself? Or, or how are those boundaries put in place in school?

Ali:

Yeah, so I think in school, in the mornings when we do academics like AI is off limits unless it's specifically on limits. So unless they like explicitly tell you you can use AI for this you can't. In the afternoon, uh, anything goes, unless like the opposite, unless they explicitly tell you that you can't. but like the difference is in the morning when you're learning stuff for yourself, in the afternoon you're more building something and the AI is like a tool, but it's not you. So, it's accepted.

Brooke:

Nice. Thank you for sharing a little bit more about that. I think people are probably just really curious what's going on in schools right now? How are they adapting it? Because I truly believe to restrict it completely, a hundred percent no use is doing nothing but hindering your success for, you know, training you and setting you up for the real world. Because people are using it in the real world and, and, uh, their professional lives. So you mentioned a little bit about vibe coding. What else are you building right now? If you could vibe code something today that would maybe make, you know, learning easier or what are you ideating? Is there anything that you're building right now?

Ali:

Yeah. So right now I am vibe coding a, uh, an MVP minimum viable product for my final project. Um, Of making a PC from scratch, I'm. Getting prebuilt PCs, like the ones you would find on Amazon, and helping people find the best prebuilt PC for them. And that's kind of the main vibe coding project that I've been working on for the past, uh, couple weeks.

Brooke:

And which, uh, vibe coding are you, making that with again?

Ali:

Oh yeah. So I'm making it with Cline C-L-I-N-E. And it's on VS code, which is like an ID like cursor for vibe coding. And I'm just in the process of making that right now, more in the planning phase. Um,'Cause something that I've learned is that. You just really need to give it an insane amount of context. So ChatGPT is helping me make like a 10,000 word like document, like outlining like every single last part of website, like, you know, the shape of the buttons and everything. So that. When it's time to actually code it, like it knows exactly what to do.'cause what happens a lot of times is an AI will just get, and then it takes hours to like undo that.

Brooke:

Yes, context engineering is really important. So you have your MVP, you have your website. Where do you see your chat bot going next? What's next for you?

Ali:

Yeah. So once I finish my MVP, then I'm going to start trying to get it out there and in the world. Because right now I don't have any customer feedback. What I'm going off is just my intuition essentially. And just what I've seen from people. but I don't know how people directly respond to what I'm doing. So, I guess what I'm trying to do is fail fast or hopefully succeed fast. And just, you know, see what people like and don't like.'cause I don't really know. So that's what I'm gonna do a right after I'm done just working on getting it out there.

Brooke:

That's a really good book. Fail Fast, fail often have you heard of it?

Ali:

Uh, no I haven't. What's it about?

Brooke:

It's to your point the quicker that you can fail and have those learning moments in business, the quicker you're gonna learn, adapt, and come back stronger. So that's amazing. You already have that mindset at such a young age. So next for you is you're gonna get some beta testers into your product. Are there any other projects on your heart that you wanna create or is this the one mainly lighting you up right now?

Ali:

This is probably the main one. I like vibe coding in general. So like if someone comes along With something that they want, that'll take, you know, you know. Six, 12 hours outta my week just to work on. I would do that too, but like for long-term, large projects, this is the only one.

Brooke:

That leads me to my next question. What are your thoughts on college? You know, to your point, everything's on the internet. You can learn everything. You have these tools and these resources. Do you plan to apply to college? Like what is your, uh, do you wanna just step right into being an entrepreneur and, and work for yourself? Like what is your thoughts on education now?

Ali:

I would say right now I plan to go to college, but um, you know, that could change just depending on how easy it is to learn college level things, not in college. So I think that however smart AI is that tool's available to everyone, it's available to know and essentially and I think at the end of the day, the gap between people will just always be how Intelligent or how, you know, poised or like how entrepreneurially forward they are. And that's the sort of thing that you can only get by educating yourself. So I think I wanna go to college to learn about business. I think that's the most important thing because that's such a difficult skill. And it's something that I think AI will have a harder time taking over because, you know, like if you're gonna pitch to investors, no one's gonna listen to like, you know, you're gonna put up your laptop and have you know, just an AI talk, like no one's gonna listen, so you need to know your stuff'cause they're gonna care about you. But yeah, I would say I definitely want to because I think what'll happen is if I don't go to college, then all the people who know as much about AI as me, who also didn't go to college, I'll be on the same level as them. And, you know, going to college and learning about business or whatever it is you wanna learn about is just gonna be like, really important for you. However college is just like a way to learn something. So if there's

Brooke:

a

Ali:

better way to learn something online or cheaper, whatever, like, I would definitely do that as well.

Brooke:

I think that colleges are gonna shift a bit more to build those interpersonal skills. You know, those skills that you can only learn in a group environments, in a group setting. I think that, you know, I studied marketing and communication and I had to take, you know, classes around public speaking, but I think that that is relevant no matter what you study your or major in now I think everybody needs to learn these types of skills. Although I know that you are very well spoken at Alpha School I've gone to some of your just like open houses and, and see the children present and speak on stage, and I'm so impressed by everything going on there. And um, I always say when I have children one day I wanna bring them to Alpha School. Well, what's one thing that you hope listeners take away from your interview? You know, especially those that are younger and exploring ai, you know, who think maybe they need to be older and experienced. Is there anything that you wanna share with listeners?

Ali:

That's a good question. I think that it's important to, uh, understand this new technology. And just learn about it a lot because if you just kind of ignore it and see it as something that's cool, you know, that you'll probably use, but you're not really gonna understand like your life is probably gonna be more difficult down the road as it gets more and more prominent. Um, Know, like. 30, 40 years ago when the internet was coming out and there are all these people, they're like, eh. It's kind of cool, like I might use it sometimes, but I'm not really gonna understand it or figure it out. And to people who kept that mentality are having like of trouble nowadays.'cause now like everything's on the internet and you need to know all sorts of things that seem intuitive, but like, you know, my grandma barely knows how to connect to the internet, or she like, doesn't understand what cellular is. So, that same thing will happen to you, you know, if you don't learn more about AI and just kind of adopt it into your life, like how people adopted the internet into your life yeah.

Brooke:

Being the forever student because there will come a day when you and I are the, the elderly population, that needs to, you know, adapt and grow continuously still as well.

Ali:

Yeah, exactly.

Brooke:

Well, Ali, I really enjoyed our conversation today because I was just, you know, wondering so much about what students are thinking in real time, how they're adapting, what their thoughts and plans are for the future. If listeners wanna connect with you or learn more about your PC parts chat bot, how can they connect and reach out?

Ali:

Yeah. So, at the time of recording this, uh, I haven't started social media or anything like that yet. But I'm definitely gonna start social media marketing. So I guess just look up my name on TikTok or Twitter, whatever, and you'll probably find me by the time this episode's out.

Brooke:

Absolutely. I'm happy to adjust the show notes and add any information in there that you want listeners to have. So thank you so much for your time today. I know you are literally at school right now, which is again, just another cool factor that they see this as you learning, growing, and developing, and that they allowed you to step away and record this episode with me today. It really was such a pleasure and an honor. Thank you so much.

Ali:

thank you so much for having me. Had a lot of fun.

Brooke:

Wow, I hope today's episode opened your mind to what's possible with AI. Do you have a cool use case on how you're using AI and want to share it? DM me. I'd love to hear more and feature you on my next podcast. Until next time, here's to working smarter, not harder. See you on the next episode of How I AI. Have you just started exploring AI and feel a bit overwhelmed? Don't worry, I've got you. Jump on a quick start audit call with me so you can walk away with a clear and personalized plan to move forward with more confidence and ease. Join my community of AI adopters like yourself. Plus, grab my free resources, including the AI Get Started Guide. Or try my How I AI companion GPT. It pulls insights from my guest interviews along with global reports, so you can stay ahead of the curve. Follow the link in the description below to get started.

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