It started with three words: I don’t know.

October 16

A talk at The Nieux

Jim Coulter co-founded TPG, an investment firm with money in some of the biggest AI companies. He also has history here. He helped build New Orleans Entrepreneur Week and came back for it year after year.

In October he sat down with Tim Williamson. Tim founded The Idea Village and in 2022 co-founded The Nieux Society. He asked Jim where AI is going. Jim’s answer was three words: I don’t know. Everyone seems sure AI will save the world or ruin it, he said, and nobody can know that yet. What you can do is get curious and ask better questions.

We liked that a lot. If someone that close to AI can say “I don’t know” out loud, so can you.

Then Tim asked what New Orleans should do in the next 90 days. Jim’s advice, as Tim wrote it up, sounded made for this city: “Build a krewe. Start talking about AI.” Get together, learn it together, and compare notes. And don’t let AI arrive here a few raindrops at a time. Bring it in as a flood.

That’s a heavy word in New Orleans, and we don’t use it lightly. We took it to mean everybody at once, not a lucky few.

October 23

We took Jim at his word

We’re the volunteers behind AI Friday, a monthly morning AI meetup in New Orleans. Since March 2026, people have been getting together to show what they’re building with AI and how they did it. Jim didn’t know about us, but after his talk several people told us he’d just described AI Friday.

A week after Jim’s talk, we retold his story at our October meetup and asked the room how to spread this beyond people who already come to AI meetups. Tim came, and the room had people from companies that came up through Entrepreneur Week. It felt like a circle closing.

But we also knew who wasn’t there. Plenty of people are curious about AI and stay home because they feel they aren’t ready. A room full of people showing off their projects doesn’t help with that. So we decided to take Jim’s advice literally and build something.

That same evening

An open building and an email

After the meetup, Tim made an offer. The Nieux Society is moving out of the historic Eiffel Tower building at 2040 St. Charles at the end of January, which left the month wide open. Why not go out in style, and bring everyone into the space to learn and share? That evening he wrote to Andrew Dunn and Eli Ackerman, two of the AI Friday organizers:

What if we took AI Friday and launched AI January? … Not another AI conference. Not another series of lectures about the future. A city learning by doing.

Tim Williamson

What that means for you

• It’s free. Every session, all month.
• You don’t need to know anything. Lots of sessions are for people who have never tried AI.
• Nobody lectures. No slides. You work on something real, and a guide sits next to you and helps.
• You help decide what happens. Anyone can suggest a session. Once five people want it and a guide signs up, we schedule it.
• You can bring your people. Your office, congregation, class, or block can have its own session.

It’s okay to be nervous

Lots of people are uneasy about AI, and they have good reasons. Some of us share those worries. Jim talked about this too, quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald on keeping two opposite ideas in your head at once. AI can worry you and still be useful to you. You don’t have to settle that before you walk in. Come see for yourself and make up your own mind.