Blueprint for impact
Get a look at the pillars shaping this course.
While development is still underway, these highlights offer an early look at the skills and outcomes you’ll be working toward:
Flexible. Applied. Built for business.
Exploring this for your team, not just yourself? You’re in the right place. This course is still in development, making it an ideal time to explore how it could support your workforce goals. Whether you're planning ahead or seeking a strategic fit, we’ll help tailor the experience so it delivers value for your team from day one.
AI at Work: From Experimenting to Boss Mode
Tired of just dabbling with AI? Bring in a priority task, process, or workflow. Understand why AI behaves the way it does, explore today’s AI tools, and build a tailored plan to put AI to work with purpose.
Description
AI can produce useful output quickly, but it cannot understand your workplace, weigh risk, or own the outcome. AI is there to support people’s work—not replace their judgment. In this applied workshop, you will learn why large language models behave the way they do—and how training data, prediction, neural networks, hallucinations, and human review shape the quality of AI-supported work. You will use that understanding to make better decisions about where AI can create value, what it needs to know, and what should remain human-led. This practical AI training workshop is designed for professionals, managers, and teams who want to use AI more confidently in everyday work.
We start with your work. Bring a task, process, workflow, or use case from your role or team, then explore the AI tool landscape through that lens. You will see how tools such as ChatGPT (OpenAI), Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot differ, along with AI built into workplace software, knowledge-based tools, and custom assistants—and identify the kinds of support that best fit your goals, risk level, and way of working.
Bring Your Workflow. Amplify It with AI.
Bring a workflow that matters to your role or team—or use these examples to identify one. The work you bring may look different across industries, but the goal is the same: start with a repeatable process where AI-supported improvements could create a clear, near-term payoff through better decisions, smoother coordination, stronger consistency, or more time for high-value work.
- Knowledge Transfer & Continuity
Capture and preserve leadership expertise, company culture, decision-making, and lessons learned—then apply them consistently across the organization. - Communication & Messaging
Turn routine updates, handoffs, and follow-ups into clearer, more consistent communication that reflects your organization’s brand voice and standards. - Ideation & Problem-Solving
Use AI to generate, test, and refine ideas; challenge assumptions; compare options; and explore scenarios grounded in your work, goals, and expertise. - Audience Insight & Experience Design
Use customer, employee, patient, client, or user insight to clarify needs, map key moments, and shape more relevant services, communications, and solutions. - Intake, Scoping & Requirements
Turn incomplete requests, competing priorities, and unclear needs into stronger briefs, sharper questions, shared expectations, and a clearer path forward. - Decision Support & Recommendations
Bring together information, options, risks, and perspectives to frame decisions, weigh tradeoffs, and turn discussion into stronger recommendations. - Presentations, Proposals & Persuasion
Turn complex information into clear, credible stories that help leaders, clients, partners, or teams understand the opportunity and act with confidence. - Training, Onboarding & Capability Building
Turn established procedures, examples, and standards into clearer learning, practice, and onboarding tools that build confidence for faster application. - Quality Assurance, Risk & Review
Use AI to organize inputs, surface potential gaps, and support human review against quality, safety, compliance, or organizational standards. - Project Planning & Coordination
Turn goals, requests, and constraints into clear priorities, roles, action plans, and handoffs—reducing rework and keeping workstreams aligned and moving.
You will leave with a personalized assistant blueprint: a practical design brief for a reusable AI assistant shaped around your workflow. Together, we will define the recurring work the assistant should support, the outcome it should help create, the trusted source materials and context it needs, the instructions and examples that guide it, the guardrails it must follow, and the review points that keep people in control.
Move beyond trial and error. Take control of how AI fits into your work, choose a stronger direction for your team, and leave with a tailored starting point you can test, refine, and put to work.
Outcomes
By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:
- See behind the prompt
Understand why large language models behave the way they do—and how prediction, neural networks, hallucinations, and human review shape output quality. - Choose the right AI lane
Explore the AI landscape. See what ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot are designed for, where they excel, and what fits your work. - Take the driver’s seat
Bring in a priority task, process, or workflow from your role or team. Identify where AI can add value, improve quality, save time, and what stays human-led. - Set the rules
Learn what makes AI more effective and responsible. Define goals, instructions, trusted sources, guardrails, and quality standards for stronger output. - Spot AI Faults Before They Become Work Problems
Use guided exercises to identify hallucinations, unsupported assumptions, missing context, and overconfident outputs. Learn when to redirect, revise, pause, or bring in human review. - Plan the build
Create an assistant blueprint: a practical plan for a custom GPT, Gemini Gem, Copilot agent, or similar assistant—ready to test, refine, and put to work.
The Learning Experience
This in-person, full-day workshop runs from 8:30 a.m.–11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m., with a midday break for lunch or personal time. The day combines instructor-led teaching, live demonstrations, guided discussion, and short, guided activities. No laptop is required, though you are welcome to bring one.
Before the workshop, you will share a priority task, process, workflow, or use case from your role or team. This gives our instructors a view of the kinds of work participants want to explore and informs the examples, guided activities, and instructor guidance used throughout the day. Please do not submit confidential, proprietary, client, employee, or other sensitive information. A brief overview of the work, its goals, and where it creates friction is enough.
The experience moves from shared learning to focused application. You will see ideas modeled live, work through guided activities using your own workflow as a starting point, and receive direction as you shape a tailored assistant blueprint. You will leave with a practical next step you can use to guide future AI work in your role or team.
Cost
Enroll now
You will be directed to our secure course registration and payment system.
If you need assistance with registration, our team is here to help. Contact us at (585) 475-2400 or certified@rit.edu.
Ready when you are
This course is not currently open for enrollment, but that doesn’t mean the opportunity has to wait.
If this course aligns with your goals or your team’s needs, let us know. Your interest helps us plan future sessions and may even accelerate the timeline. We also offer custom options for organizations looking to run tailored versions of this experience.
Hear from the experts
Watch an introduction by the creator of this course, [name]
Insight
Value
Meet Your Instructors
Our workshops are led by practitioners who pair real-world workflow experience with evidence-based learning design—so sessions are practical, engaging, and immediately applicable.

Thérèse Hannigan is a designer, strategist, and longtime business owner who has spent decades leading client projects and building human-centered digital experiences across industries. She now integrates AI into the same creative and strategic workflows—framing problems, synthesizing inputs, developing messaging, and iterating ideas—so teams can move faster with more clarity and stronger outcomes. She founded and led a design/UX studio acquired in 2019 and is a tenured faculty member in RIT’s College of Art and Design.

Mark Ferguson is an instructional designer, educational technologist, and experienced educator with over 15 years in education, including a decade focused on faculty development, online learning, and higher education innovation. He specializes in designing and facilitating high-impact workshops for adult learners, grounded in evidence-based instructional design and adult learning theory. His work blends deep expertise in curriculum design and emerging technologies—including AI—with coaching and collaborative program development.
Private Delivery and Customized Training
Private delivery gives your organization a dedicated session of this workshop for your team alone. The core learning experience, outcomes, and activities remain the same, without outside participants.
Customized training builds from that foundation to shape examples, guided activities, and outputs around your organization’s approved materials, shared workflows, standards, and goals. For cross-functional teams, this can include examining how work moves between roles, surfacing handoff friction, and identifying opportunities for shared AI practices. For team leaders and internal champions, it can provide a practical starting point for building shared language, identifying early use cases, and guiding responsible AI adoption.
Customization can address your:
- Priority roles, teams, and business goals
- Recurring workflows and non-sensitive scenarios
- Current tools, policies, review practices, and approval expectations
- Organizational language, quality standards, and ways of working
Need something deeper? RIT Certified can scope a bespoke engagement that may include workflow discovery, tailored learning design, assistant blueprints, or customized AI-supported tools.
Contact us to explore private delivery, customized training, or a bespoke engagement.