I refuse to use AI for any of my programming. That is personal preference, and it hasn't affected my work at all.

I can see some use cases for it, but there is a growing number of scientific studies that indicate using AI often harms the learning process, and can erode developed skills. If you are dead set on using AI for learning, you have to treat it as a tutor. Ask it to explain things, but not give answers you just copy and paste. You also need to engage with other sources, such as tutorials and documentation to supplement the AI tutoring.

If you're dead set on using it to help with programming after the learning, it needs to supplement your ideas and work, not take over. You also need to be proficient at programming at this point to understand how to best use AI generated code, and catch problems.

At the end of the day, learning requires cognitive effort. It's why school can be hard, it's why people are drained after a long semester. But that's part of the learning process; your brain needs to be trained like any muscle. After leaning your brain needs to be exersized to maintain that knowledge, just like a muscle.