The aim of the present study was to explore adolescents’ lived experience of using generative AI and to clarify how they interact with the opportunities, dependencies, and boundaries of this technology. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach and Brown and Clarke’s reflective content analysis. Data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with 14 adolescents aged 14 to 18 (9 girls and 5 boys). Recursive data analysis resulted in 50 primary codes, 18 subthemes, six main themes, and one central theme. The main themes were: “Efficiency and organization of everyday affairs,” “Mixing instrumental and human status,” “Efficiency at cognitive costs,” “Conditional trust and maintaining human authority,” “Keeping AI in its proper place,” and “A two-faceted future.” The central theme of “bounded efficient interactions” showed that adolescents are neither passive adopters of technology nor fully autonomous users; they constantly draw boundaries between speed and effort, support and substitution, intimacy and authenticity, trust and doubt, and use and resistance. AI has provided a fast, non-judgmental space for learning, decision-making, and emotional expression, but it has also raised concerns about cognitive outsourcing, reduced creativity, privacy, misinformation, epistemic and existential anxiety, and the weakening of human relationships. Accordingly, AI literacy training must go beyond technical skill to include epistemic judgment, self-regulation, data protection, recognizing the boundaries of help and substitution, and referring high-risk issues to human experts.