Artificial intelligence is the most essential tool young people need to be successful, says billionaire investor Mark Cuban — but don't expect it to do your work for you.

The technology works best when you already have the experience necessary to fact-check or add quality control to AI results. If you expect AI to master a skill like writing or video editing for you overnight, you'll fall behind your competition, Cuban said at a SXSW panel announcing the partnership between ABC's "Shark Tank" and payment processing platform Clover.

"AI is never the answer; AI is the tool," Cuban said. While AI can write scripts and edit videos, it can't discern what is a good or bad story, he noted, so "you need to be creative. Whatever skills you have, AI can amplify them."

The new recipe for professional success is starting with your pre-existing skills, talents, and experiences, and then using AI to hone your work and make some of your processes faster, Cuban said.

You ignore AI at your own peril, Cuban added: Your use of the technology "could be the difference between [your competition] getting ahead of you or not."

How top Tech execs use ChatGPT and AI generally

Leaders of big AI companies — like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — use the technology to handle mundane administrative tasks, like writing emails, summarizing documents or outlining speeches.

Huang uses an AI chatbot tutor to teach him about multiple subjects, too, like digital biology on a daily basis, he told journalist Cleo Abram on the YouTube interview show "Huge Conversations," in an episode that aired in January.

AI programs can "teach you things — anything you like. Help you program, help you write, help you analyze, help you think, help you reason," he said. "All of those things [are] going to really make you feel empowered and I think that's going to be our future."

Huang and his company will, of course, benefit if more people increasingly rely on AI. But other, less personally invested experts like Stanford professor, entrepreneur and author Steve Blank strongly recommend getting comfortable with the technology to get the most out of it.

"AI [is] a force multiplier to everything you do," Blank told CNBC Make It. "AI could help you figure out where to get outside, probably faster than anything else. If you have a business idea, [ask] something like ChatGPT: 'I have Idea X, has anybody done it? Why hasn't [it] worked? Where should I best do this?'"

Gaining proficiency with AI is a smart way to help your career or make money on your own, Cuban agrees.

In fact, if he were a teenager again, he'd learn how to write prompts for AI chatbots, then teach his friends how use the prompts to improve their schools papers, Cuban told CNBC Make It in 2024. "Then, I would go to businesses, particularly small- to medium-sized businesses that don't understand AI yet," he said. "Doesn't matter if I'm 16, I'd be teaching them as well."

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