AI TRAINING
8-Week AI Literacy Cohort for SME Middle Managers
Middle managers leave with the skills to evaluate, pilot, and report on AI initiatives confidently.
What it covers
An 8-week cohort programme designed for middle managers at small and mid-sized companies who need to move from AI curiosity to informed action. Participants cover AI fundamentals, practical prompting, risk and compliance basics, vendor evaluation, and change management — culminating in a capstone pilot presentation. Sessions run weekly (2 hours each) with structured peer discussion and light homework, totalling roughly 24-32 hours of learning. By the end, managers can independently scope, run, and report on a small AI pilot within their own team.
What you'll be able to do
- Write and evaluate effective prompts for at least three business tasks relevant to your role
- Apply a structured framework to assess and shortlist AI vendors or tools for an SME context
- Identify and scope a viable AI pilot within your team, including success metrics and risk mitigations
- Communicate AI initiative progress and outcomes clearly to non-technical senior leadership
- Recognise key GDPR and data-handling constraints that apply to common SME AI deployments
Topics covered
- AI foundations: how models work without the maths
- Practical prompting and prompt evaluation techniques
- Identifying and scoping high-value AI use cases in your team
- Risk, data privacy, and GDPR basics for AI deployments
- Vendor and tool evaluation frameworks for SMEs
- Change management and stakeholder communication
- Running a structured AI pilot and measuring outcomes
- Capstone: presenting a pilot plan and results to leadership
Delivery
Delivered fully remote via live video sessions (2 hours/week × 8 weeks) with a dedicated cohort channel for async peer exchange. Each session includes 30 minutes of facilitated discussion and hands-on exercises using real tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, or equivalent). Participants complete 1–2 hours of self-paced reading or exercises between sessions. A facilitator guide and slide deck are provided; no on-site delivery required, though an in-person kick-off day can be arranged for an additional fee.
What makes it work
- Securing visible executive sponsorship so managers feel empowered to act on what they learn
- Pairing each participant with a real business challenge to work on throughout the 8 weeks
- Building a peer alumni network so managers continue to share learnings and experiments after the cohort ends
- Scheduling a 90-day follow-up check-in to review pilot outcomes and reinforce accountability
Common mistakes
- Sending only senior leaders or only junior staff, leaving middle managers — the actual change agents — out of AI upskilling
- Treating the programme as a one-off event rather than the start of an ongoing learning culture
- Skipping the capstone step, so participants never translate learning into a concrete internal pilot
- Underestimating change-management content and focusing exclusively on tools, leading to poor adoption
When NOT to take this
This programme is not the right fit for a company that needs one or two technical staff to build or integrate AI systems — in that case a practitioner bootcamp or hands-on engineering course is more appropriate than a manager literacy cohort.
Providers to consider
Sources
This training is part of a Data & AI catalog built for leaders serious about execution. Take the free diagnostic to see which trainings your team needs.