Instructor Spotlight: Diogo Resende on Why AI Is the Tool, Not the Goal

Meet Diogo Alves de Resende, a data scientist, AI educator, course creator, and startup founder who has taught more than 76,000 learners right here on Udemy. With more than a decade of experience at the intersection of data, business, and technology, Diogo brings a practical perspective to AI, one focused less on chasing every new development and more on using technology to solve problems that actually matter.

From using AI to tackle things outside his own skill set to applying technology to real business challenges through his startup, Diogo’s approach is refreshingly grounded: AI is the tool, not the goal.

We asked him how people can feel more confident using AI, what businesses and professionals should be focusing on, and how learners can start putting AI into practice for themselves.

1. AI can feel intimidating, especially for people who don’t consider themselves “technical.” What do you think people should understand about AI to feel more confident using it?

So there are two things that I wrap my head around.

The first one is that if you consider that AI reinvents itself every year, or even that AI has a certain theme every single year, this also means that you’re never late, right? Because you can always jump on the next wave. So this is, for me, what is the most exciting about it, because it’s technology that’s always changing, so you never set yourself to one specific part of the technology because that is going to change. So, you’re never late.

The second one. Every revolutionary technology has one specific characteristic, in my perspective, which is decentralization. This means that the more the technology is available and widely spread to everyone, the more fundamentally revolutionary it is. If you think about the internet, over time, it has gotten to more and more people. Same thing about doing anything on the web, like selling. Anyone could do it, but not necessarily when it started. And this is the same thing about AI. Over time, all of the features are becoming available to more and more people. So that’s super exciting.

To sum it up, you're never late—that's super good—and it's going to be more and more approachable over time.

2. How are you personally using AI in your day-to-day work, and where has it genuinely made a difference?

So I’m using it a lot for things that I’m not as good at. For things that I think I’m super good at (so consider anything about writing or speaking) these I do myself, because I think the way that I would do it is way better than what any AI would do.

But there are things that I’m not as good at. I’m not super visual, I really struggle to combine colors and make things look nice, so I’ve really relied on AI to build any kind of thing that requires visual creativity. So I’m super excited about that.

3. With AI evolving so quickly, what do you think businesses and professionals should be focusing on most right now?

Well, the priorities should be the same all the time, right? They have not changed because of AI.

The priority is always going to be: you are a business, so you focus on your customers, your employees, and your general stakeholders. Same thing about a professional, right? You focus on your team, you focus on your career, you focus on the customers of your company.

That has always been the main thing to focus on. AI is a tool, so it's meant to be something that helps you achieve your goals faster, right? The goals never change, therefore the priorities are never going to shift.

4. You’re also building a startup, Bitte. What have you learned from applying AI and technology to real business problems that you think people could take into their own work?

I always like to give this example, but the main point, which really connects to the focus of businesses and professionals, is that it only makes sense to add AI and technology if you’re solving a real business problem. You’re not going to solve something because it has AI, right? That is the key point.

If you think about the startup, which is for restaurants and restaurant owners, we focus on the issues of restaurant owners. What are they? This is across the board for any kind of B2B business, but basically, restaurant owners want to make more money. What does that mean? They want to increase revenue or decrease costs.

And therefore, every kind of thing that we have with technology, AI or not, has to address these two things: increasing revenue or decreasing costs.

So if you're just putting stuff in just because of AI, it's not going to work. If we're going to have an agent that has AI—it's cool, it's trendy—but if it's not really solving something that matters, then it's pointless.

So that would be the main thing: we add stuff and we solve stuff that matters, AI or not AI.

5. After teaching AI to thousands of learners on Udemy, what’s one insight that has really stayed with you?

I think the most successful people that I’ve seen on Udemy from my learners are the ones that ask questions and the ones that are not really shy about it. So that’s a skill, right? That you feel comfortable enough asking any questions. There are no stupid questions, but it’s oftentimes not easy to ask them. And therefore, that would be the one skill: that you are shamelessly asking questions. So go for it.

6. For someone who would like to become more confident with AI but doesn’t know where to start, what’s one practical thing you’d encourage them to do this week?

The way that I like to learn is that I find something that is bothering me, so I find a project. I’m very much of a project-based learner. I also like to think I’m a project-based instructor, but I’m definitely a learner. So I would always tackle something that is repetitive, and it helps if it’s something that has to do with text or images, something digital. Find an issue that you spend a long time doing, and go for it.

That said, it's often difficult to start on your own. So I would say that you go on Udemy, find a very nice 30 to 40-minute course on AI, and start there. It's 30 to 40 minutes. You can watch it while you're having lunch or while you are commuting, and then go and apply that.

And then I think when we start applying things—because one of the components about learning is that we understand, not just the creative part. The creative part comes later after we have mastered something, right? So once we have mastered it, then we can actually have ideas of stuff to solve on our own.

7. You’re also taking part in Udemy’s new Instructor Communities. What are you most excited about when it comes to building and interacting with your community on Udemy?

Well, what I’m most excited about is going to be the day-to-day or week-to-week collaboration with people. I’m a big fan of human-based learning, and I cannot even tell you how much I have learned from other people. It’s super helpful to have this long-term collaboration with anyone.

Especially as people get to know each other, you get to know their projects, you get to share what you’re doing, and you get to learn from others. I’m super excited about that, because I’m in it, of course, to provide a community and lead the community, but in the end, the community is never going to be about me, it’s going to be about people like you who join.

So I’m excited about that, and I really hope to see everyone in my community. It’s going to be about building stuff with AI, building projects with AI. So if you want to be part of that, come and join, because I’ll be there and I’ll be giving it my all.

Ready to keep building with AI?

If Diogo’s approach to learning AI has you ready to put it into practice, join his Udemy Community to connect with other learners, collaborate on projects, and build with AI together.

You can also explore Diogo’s instructor profile on Udemy to discover his courses and continue learning from his practical approach to AI, data, and technology.