Hands-on AI workshops for leadership teams
Your leaders build AI agents for their own work with James McAulay, then plan how to bring the rest of the company along.
Hands-on, then strategy · In person or online · From a leadership team to 100+ senior leaders · Claude or ChatGPT
Led by James McAulay, ex-ElevenLabs and founder of Encore (acquired by Mixcloud).
James has trained 500+ people from 200+ companies:
Run in whichever agent your company uses
Leaders learn on the platform their teams will use next.
Claude
Claude Code
ChatGPT
Codex
Copilot
Gemini
Grok Bot
Hermes
Instinct
OpenClaw
Who this is for
Leadership teams at growing companies
A CEO and their direct reports who want to use AI themselves before deciding what the rest of the company does with it.
Senior leadership groups
VPs and directors at larger companies, in one room or several.
A leader on their own
The live Agent Accelerator cohort is the better fit: four weeks, alongside leaders from other companies. See the curriculum.
Why the leadership team goes first
Most companies roll out AI from the bottom: licences for everyone, a lunch-and-learn, a Slack channel for tips. A few people take off. Most wait to be told what it is for, by leaders who have not used it on real work.
Leaders who have built an agent for their own work know what is easy, what is fiddly and what needs a rule before anyone connects a tool. They also need to learn together. Roei Samuel, CEO of Connectd, put seven of his leaders through the Agent Accelerator with him, because uneven skills across a leadership team give uneven results.
From the leadership team to the whole company
- 01
Leaders build
Each leader gets an agent working on a task from their own week.
- 02
Leaders set the rules
What can be connected, what stays read-only, and who owns it.
- 03
Each leader picks a team
The function where an agent would save the most time first.
- 04
The teams build
The same hands-on format, on their own tools.
A leadership day
The full-day format. The half day keeps the build and a shorter session on the company.
Intake
Each leader’s tools, and the tasks they would hand over first.
Set up
Second brain, inbox, calendar and documents, read-only to start.
Build
An agent for a leadership task: meeting prep, a board update, the week’s numbers.
Enable the teams
Where agents fit in each function, the rules, and who owns it.
Demos
Each leader shows the room their agent working.
Roadmap
Each leader’s next agents, and the plan for their teams.
Three ways to run it
All three run in person or online, on your leaders’ own tools. James recommends in person: with everyone in one room, the change is bigger and it happens faster.
Leadership half day
For a leadership team that wants to start this quarter. Each leader builds a first agent for a leadership task, then a shorter session on what comes next for the company.
- In person or online
Leadership day
The day above, with time to build properly and a full afternoon on the company. It works well as the AI day of a leadership offsite.
- At your office, an offsite venue or online
- A second facilitator above 30 people
Leadership day, then the teams
The leadership day first, then a workshop or a two-day bootcamp for the teams the leaders picked.
- Teams of 10 to 200 afterwards
A CEO and his leadership team, at Connectd
Connectd is a 150-person company doing $19m ARR. In June 2026 its CEO, Roei Samuel, went through the Agent Accelerator with seven of his leaders.
- Who
- The CEO, COO, CCO, CMO, VP of Sales and three function heads.
- The time
- Roei made it compulsory: three hours on a Tuesday, three on a Friday and an hour on a Thursday, for four weeks.
- The CEO
- Three scheduled agents catch the action items he used to lose from long conversations with his execs, and send him a digest every morning.
- The COO
- A skill reads the roadmaps in Notion and builds the weekly stakeholder deck, so she no longer assembles it.
“If you’re serious about doing this, take the plunge. Send all of the right people, all the right leaders. For us, it’s just been unbelievable.”
Roei Samuel, CEO and Founder, Connectd
- 8Connectd leaders went through it together
- 6 of 8shipped something running on live company data
- 2custom MCP servers, built by people who are not engineers
- 4 weeksfrom start to finish
Senior leadership groups at larger companies
The same approach works in a big room. In August 2026 James ran a half day for 120 senior vice presidents at a US enterprise software company, with a training partner.
- Format
Half a day in person, three and a half hours.
- Who
120 senior vice presidents.
- What
A Claude workshop on putting AI agents to work on their own jobs.
Book a scoping call“It’s changed the way we will think about headcount expansion.”
Roei Samuel, CEO and Founder, Connectd
Taught by James McAulay
James teaches every workshop himself. He was CEO of Encore for ten years until it sold to Mixcloud, so he has sat on the leadership side of these decisions, and he later led creator growth at ElevenLabs. The reviews here come from the Agent Accelerator, the four-week cohort he also runs.
Cambridge Computer ScienceReviews are from Agent Accelerator graduates. Read all 119 reviews.
Leadership AI workshop questions, answered
How much does an AI workshop for a leadership team cost?
It’s quoted per workshop, based on how many people and which format. Book a 20-minute scoping call and James sends a quote.
Is this for leaders or for individual contributors?
Leaders: a CEO and their direct reports, or VPs and directors at a larger company. Other staff are better served by a team workshop, and individuals by the four-week Agent Accelerator cohort.
How is it different from a team workshop?
In two ways. Leaders build agents for leadership work, such as meeting prep, board updates and reporting. And the afternoon is spent planning the rollout: which teams go first, the rules on data, and who owns it. A team workshop spends the whole day building.
Is it strategy or hands-on?
Both. The morning is hands-on, and each leader builds an agent. The afternoon is strategy, planned by people who have now seen first-hand what agents can and cannot do.
Do our leaders need to be technical?
No. At Connectd, two of the eight leaders built custom MCP servers within four weeks, and neither is an engineer.
What should a leadership team build first?
A weekly task that takes about an hour: meeting prep, a first draft of the board update, a summary of the week’s numbers, or chasing people for updates. Roei, Connectd’s CEO, started with agents that pull the action items out of his exec conversations and chase four execs for their Monday update.
How do we keep AI use under control once the teams start?
Set the rules before anyone connects a tool. In the afternoon, leaders agree what can be connected, what stays read-only, which data stays out, and who owns agents in each function. Teams then start read-only, so early mistakes are cheap.
What does a leadership team leave with?
An agent for each leader’s own work, agreed rules on data and permissions, a list of which teams go first, and a written roadmap from James.
Is it a qualification, like the CMI or business school courses?
No. Those are assessed programmes that run for weeks or months. This is a hands-on half day or full day. Everyone gets a certificate of completion, and CPD accreditation for the one-day workshop is in progress.
How do we know whether it worked?
Check what is still running a month later. At Connectd, six of the eight leaders had shipped something on live company data within four weeks. James’s roadmap lists each leader’s next agents, so you have something concrete to check against.
How many people can attend?
From a CEO and their direct reports up to more than 100 senior leaders. Above 30 people a second facilitator joins James.
How long is it, and is it online or in person?
Half a day or a full day, in person or online. James recommends in person: leaders get further, faster, in one room.
Can it be part of a leadership away day or offsite?
Yes. James can run it at your office or your offsite venue, as one day of a longer programme or the whole thing.
Which AI tools does it use?
Whatever your company already pays for, usually Claude or ChatGPT for work. The day works the same in either. For a Claude company, see Claude training for teams.
What happens after the day?
James sends a written roadmap with each leader’s next agents and the plan for their teams. When the teams are ready, they can do the same hands-on workshop. Every format is on the team workshops page.
Book a 20-minute scoping call
A quote follows. Rather not book a call? Send an enquiry instead.
Or send an enquiry
Tell James a little about your team and he’ll be in touch.
Talk to James about a workshop for your leadership team
Book a scoping call, or send an enquiry and James will get back to you.