Hands-on AI training for small business teams

Most people at work have tried ChatGPT or something like it by now. Some found it brilliant. Others asked it one vague question, got a vague answer and gave up. And in a lot of small businesses, staff are quietly using free AI tools on their personal accounts, pasting in customer emails without anyone deciding whether that’s all right.

Training sorts all three out. The aim is a team that uses AI for the jobs it’s good at, checks what it produces, and keeps customer information in the right place.

Training built around your own work

Generic AI courses show you how to plan a holiday or write a poem. That’s not much use to a receptionist at a dental practice or an estimator at a building firm. Before the session, we ask what fills your team’s week. Then we build the exercises around those jobs: the enquiry emails you get, the quotes you write, the reports you produce, the reviews you reply to.

We use made-up or anonymised versions of real examples during the session, so nobody’s actual customer data goes anywhere it shouldn’t.

Good prompts are just clear instructions

There’s a lot of fuss online about “prompt engineering”. For most small business tasks it comes down to explaining the job the way you’d explain it to a new member of staff: who it’s for, what you want, how long, what tone, and what to avoid. We practise this with a few before-and-after examples until it clicks.

Checking is the most important skill

AI tools can get prices, dates, names and facts wrong while sounding completely confident. The single most useful habit we teach is reading every AI draft as if a slightly careless new starter wrote it. Is every fact right? Would you be happy if the customer read it? Did it promise something you can’t do?

Which tools to use

If your business already pays for Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, the AI built into those (Copilot and Gemini) is often the safest place to start, because it works inside accounts your business controls. We cover the tools you have, rather than selling you new ones. If they aren’t set up yet, see our page on Microsoft Copilot and Gemini setup.

Training and your AI policy go together

A session is the ideal time to agree the ground rules: which tools are approved, what can and can’t be pasted in, and who checks what before it goes out. If you don’t have those written down yet, we can help you write a short AI policy and use the training to walk the team through it.

Who it’s for

Owners who want to understand what AI can do before spending money on it. Office teams who want to save time on email and admin. Staff who are nervous about AI and want to try it somewhere safe. We go at the pace of the group, and nobody needs to be technical.