Training is the item most often left out of an AI budget, yet it decides everything: a licence that sits unused costs its full price and returns nothing. We use a single format, because it works for an SME: half a day of hands-on practice, then short follow-up over three months. Here is what it involves.

Stage 1: the AI Workshop, 4 hours on your own tasks

The AI Workshop is not a lecture. Each participant works on their own letters, quotes, meeting notes or files, with the tool the team will actually use. Four objectives:

  • Knowing what the tool does well and badly. Drafting, summarising, sorting, rewording: well. Counting precisely, quoting an exact source, remembering a figure: badly, or not without checking. The tool can make up a plausible answer; people learn to spot it.
  • Knowing how to ask. Giving context, an example and the expected format; breaking a long task into steps; asking the tool to flag what it does not know.
  • Knowing the data rules. What may go into the tool (internal, and client data for the planned uses) and what may not (protected), with the team's own examples. The rule fits on a one-page sheet.
  • Choosing three uses. The three tasks where the team will use AI from the following week, ranked with the gain / effort / risk grid.

Everyone leaves with the data sheet, a set of ready-to-use instructions and the plan for the three uses. A group has no more than 20 people; to train more staff, we run several groups.

Stage 2: three months of short follow-up

Adoption is won or lost in the weeks that follow, when the real cases turn up. Follow-up is provided under AI Adoption Support:

  • A short, regular check-in with the team's AI lead: what is working, what is stuck, which instructions need fixing.
  • Quick answers to everyday questions: "Can I put this document into the tool?", "Why does the answer change every time?".
  • New uses added once the first three are running, using the same grid.
  • Updated rules whenever a tool, a supplier or a team changes.

Three months is the subscription minimum and the time it takes for a use to become a habit. After that, you can carry on, switch to occasional support or stop: the instructions and rules remain yours.

What makes the difference between sessions

  • An AI lead within the team. Someone who uses the tool, answers colleagues' questions and reports what is getting stuck. About an hour a week. Our guide does an SME need an AI lead? describes the role.
  • Five minutes in the team meeting. A tip, a mistake avoided, a new use. That is where usage gets corrected.
  • Easy access. Accounts open, the data sheet visible, instructions shared in a place everyone knows.

What has changed after three months

  1. The team uses AI on real tasks, and you know which ones.
  2. The rules are written down, known and applied.
  3. The AI lead has been named and the team knows whom to ask.
  4. Time saved has been measured on at least one process, using the method in our ROI guide.

What the training costs

The workshop: CHF 1,900 excluding VAT for 4 hours, or CHF 2,900 for a 7-hour day, per group. The follow-up: AI Adoption Support, at a fixed price on quotation or as a subscription from CHF 1,800 a month for 10 hours (Essential plan), with a three-month minimum, then cancellable with 30 days' notice. Tool licences are extra, in your name.