the AI is not that sophisticated. It has a set of loadouts and bulletins which it will randomly choose at the start of the game. and as far as I know the Ai will also follow a set build order, unless the perfect counter to tanks and atguns are scout cars 20 mins in the game 
Maybe Hard AI you get when humans drop,will they build scout cars 20 mins in,
Ostheer expert AI will have 12-14 min panthers constantly,and almost always counterbuilds a hard counter to what I build unless I vary my army moreso than I would in a normal automatch vs players game.
The only time I have it easy with expert AI is when i purposefully counter their cheat builds (Playing as sovs and being forced to get T2+T4 and getting su85 when they do this 11 min spot-for-itself panther cheat

)
@VV they fixed the AI a patch or so ago to where they now use airstrikes and artillery abilities,in this cheating manner as well because they will have no way of seeing your units and will call appropriate offmaps on stupidly deep into the "fog of war."
Moral of the story OP the computer plays nothing like a player will,so just get your feet wet,chances are youll be pretty successful at least initially since you've been throwing your balls against the wall with the cheating Expert AI.
If you aren't successful then thats what this section of the forum is for,just post the replay and we'll help you out.