Building a habit: Working with AI

The problem to solve

Your business has invested in the pro version of (insert AI tool here). You've appointed 'champions'. Watched demos. Bookmarked prompts. But nothing's changed. It's not access that's missing, most people have the tool already, it's knowing where to start with it. IBM's 2026 CEO Study found 86% of employees have AI access, but only a quarter use it regularly.¹

This is a four week programme where something does. Rahul Sharma draws on the experience and lessons of scaling AI ways of working at Xero's 100+ person team to set up your AI operating system and use it to build and deploy a working app.

The programme is anchored on Claude Pro, which is what most of the day-to-day advice, prompting patterns, and workspace setup will be built around. If your business runs on a different tool (ChatGPT, Copilot, Cursor, or Gemini) we'll adapt the specifics to it; because the interfaces vary, but the underlying thinking and mechanics don't.

The Format

Before week one, each person fills in a short intake form: what they do, what they want AI for, and what they can't do with it (client data into a public tool, anything outside their firm's approved systems). Rahul reads these submissions and fine tunes the sessions around what's actually in the room, not a generic curriculum.

• Week one is a two-hour start-up: get set up, learn the foundations, and get enough footing to start on something real.
• Weeks two and three are thirty-minute one-to-ones, working on live tasks, unsticking what's stuck, and pushing further with the tool each time.
• Week four is a showcase: share what got built, and decide what's next.

The Outcome

By the end, each person will be able to:

• Set up their chosen tool properly for real work
• Apply AI fundamentals, including guidance on operating principles, safety and ethics, and token optimisation
• Write prompts that get them a usable answer the first time, not the fifth
• Know what to hand off to AI and what to check by hand before it goes anywhere
• Turn a task they do every week into something they don't have to rebuild from scratch each time
• Point to one real thing they built, and explain how they'd do the next one faster

Pre-reqs

• 6 hours of session time across the four weeks
• 2-4 hours to experiment and progress your project
• An idea of a project (we recommend a personal one you're interested in - think fitness application, cook book, travel planner)
• A laptop and a pro subscription

Investment

• $750 plus GST per person
• 20% discount for 5+