Your team will learn
- What AI assistants actually are and how they differ from search engines or traditional software
- How to use an AI assistant confidently for drafting, summarising, researching and problem-solving
- Writing clear, effective prompts that get useful results without trial and error
- When to trust AI output — and when to verify, challenge or skip it entirely
- Connecting AI tools to the systems your team already uses
- Sharing reusable AI workflows that create lasting efficiency across your organisation
Overview
AI assistants are already changing how people work - but most business teams are picking them up ad hoc, with no shared understanding of how to use them well. This half-day workshop gives people the foundation they need to use AI confidently, responsibly and effectively in their everyday roles.
The session is practical and hands-on throughout. Delegates will work directly with an AI assistant on real tasks - drafting communications, summarising documents, researching topics, solving problems - and leave with both the skills and the habits to continue independently. No coding, no technical background and no prior AI experience is required.
The workshop is tool-agnostic and can be delivered using whichever AI assistant your organisation has standardised on - whether that is Claude, Microsoft Copilot, or another approved platform. It can also be tailored to specific roles, workflows or industries, and aligned to your existing AI usage policies.
Outline
What is AI, Really?
A plain-language explanation of how large language models work — no maths, no jargon
How an AI assistant differs from a search engine, a database or a person
Common misconceptions about what AI can and cannot do
Hands-on introduction: every delegate opens their AI assistant and runs their first real conversation
Overview of key features: integrations, reusable workflows, projects, memory and configuration
Using AI Responsibly
A practical framework for deciding when to reach for an AI assistant - and when not to
Safe use cases - when to jump in
Cases requiring caution - understanding the need for guardrails and “human in the loop” behaviour
The verification habit: understanding when to cross-check AI output before acting on it
How to apply your organisation's AI usage policy in day-to-day practice
Practical Use Cases
Writing assistance - Drafting emails, reports and documents from rough notes; refining output iteratively to a usable, polished result
Summarisation - Extracting key decisions, actions and insights from meeting transcripts, articles and long documents
Research and Q&A - Asking complex questions on role-relevant topics, following up to go deeper, and applying the verification habit
Problem-solving and brainstorming - Using AI as a thinking partner to explore options, surface considerations and evaluate ideas with your own domain knowledge
Effective Prompting
Being specific: why vague prompts produce vague answers
Providing context: audience, tone, constraints and purpose
Requesting output formats: bullet points, tables, prose, ready-to-send drafts
Iterating quickly: treating AI as a collaborator rather than a vending machine
Hands-on exercise: delegates refine a weak prompt in real time and see the difference in output quality
Connecting AI to Your Tools
Connecting assistants to systems your team uses: email, Slack, shared drives, business applications
What becomes possible when AI can read and act on live data from your environment
Practical considerations: permissions, read-only access and avoiding unintended changes
Building Reusable Workflows
What a reusable AI workflow is
Writing workflows, testing their effectiveness, iterating and improving them over time
Using shared workflows to create team-wide leverage without everyone being a power user
Team Collaboration
Shared projects: team-level context, reusable prompts, shared documents and conversation history
Inviting colleagues to build on each other's work
Real examples: sales teams with proposal templates; HR teams with onboarding checklists; finance teams with budget analysis workflows
Requirements
Delegates do not need any technical background or prior experience with AI tools. The workshop can be delivered using whichever AI assistant your organisation has standardised on - Claude, Microsoft Copilot, or another approved platform. Your trainer will confirm tooling requirements ahead of the session.
The session consists primarily of hands-on exercises rather than lecture time. Delegates should expect to work with an AI assistant directly throughout, and are encouraged to bring real tasks or documents from their own role to use as material during the practical exercises.
