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 Ideation: Custom Assistant Studio
A guided build studio to create and test a custom ideation assistant for your use case—so you leave with a setup you can keep refining.
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Description
Build a custom AI assistant designed to support your ideation work. In this guided studio, participants turn what they learned in the earlier workshops into a usable tool that helps generate better starting points, structure thinking, and support more repeatable idea development. Together, we shape an assistant around actual use cases, clear prompting logic, and a workflow participants can continue refining after the session.
Participants translate a real challenge into a structured prompt sequence, add constraints and quality checks, and incorporate examples and references that improve reliability. As they build, they troubleshoot common breakdowns—drift, shallow results, repetition, or unreliable claims—and apply fixes that improve output quality more efficiently. The emphasis is on hands-on application: saving what works into a working setup that can be run again, improved over time, and used across projects.
Participants leave with a configured assistant, a working process, and a clear plan for where to use it first.
Outcomes
Each outcome is taught through applied practice, so you can use the workflow immediately.
- Apply the ideation workflow to a real use case
Use your own challenge to move from framing to options, refinement, and a clearer forward direction. - Configure an ideation assistant
Set up role, instructions, constraints, and examples so the assistant supports your process and stays aligned to your intent. - Improve quality more efficiently
Use constraints, exemplars, and verification checks to raise the usefulness of outputs in fewer iterations. - Troubleshoot common breakdowns
Diagnose why outputs drift, repeat, or miss the mark, then apply fixes that bring results back on track. - Make the setup reusable
Save what works into a reusable configuration you can run again, refine over time, and apply across projects. - Leave with a next-step plan
Identify where to use your assistant first, what to observe, and how to keep improving results after the workshop.
The Learning Experience
This in-person, 4-hour Custom Assistant Studio is hands-on and implementation-focused. It’s best if you’ve completed AI Ideation: Applied Workflow, or already feel confident providing clear instructions and constraints. Bring a laptop and a paid account for Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, or ChatGPT (OpenAI) so you can build and test during the session. You’ll work on your own use case with 1:1 instructor guidance and leave with a working assistant you can begin using immediately.
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.
For Teams & Employers
We offer private custom assistant studios for teams ready to implement real use cases. Private delivery allows us to align to your tools, policies, and approval norms, use your real scenarios, and create shared assets (assistant instructions, examples, checkpoints) your team can reuse. Teams often use this format to accelerate implementation and leave with a configured assistant that supports more reliable quality across projects. Optional follow-up working sessions are available to support rollout and refinement.
Want to explore private delivery or a cohort? Contact us to discuss timing, tailoring, and options.
Pathways and certificates
This course is part of a broader mastery certificate.
Explore how it fits into a full learning journey.
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