Course description

Has your workplace started using AI, or do you keep hearing about ChatGPT and Copilot without knowing where to start? This course shows you how to use AI assistants at work with confidence: getting useful answers, saving time on everyday tasks and, just as important, knowing what to check and what never to paste in.

It's a full course, not a list of tips. There are 10 sections and 52 step-by-step written lessons, each with example prompts, a worked example and a practical task. Every section has a practice pack of prompt templates, checklists and sample files. Throughout the course you follow an office manager at a lettings agency in Leicester as she leads her team's first AI pilot, mistakes and near misses included.

What you'll learn

• How AI works: what generative AI is, what it's good at and why it sometimes makes things up.
• Prompting: the four-part prompt (task, context, format, tone), follow-ups and your own prompt library.
• Safe and responsible use: data protection, confidentiality, AI policies, bias, copyright and AI scams.
• Writing: emails, letters, reports, customer replies and proofreading, in your own voice.
• Reading and research: summaries, meeting notes, research with checked sources and decisions.
• Spreadsheets and data: formulas, cleaning data, spotting patterns and charts in Excel and Google Sheets.
• Everyday tools: AI in office software, images, transcription, translation and simple automation.

Two final projects

You'll build your own AI toolkit of tested prompts and checklists, then take a real task from your job from start to finish with AI, checking every step.

Who this course is for

• Office, admin and customer service staff whose employer has started using AI.
• Team leaders who want their team to use AI safely and well.
• Small business owners looking to save time on writing, admin and planning.
• Complete beginners: no technical knowledge or coding needed.

How the course works

Read each lesson, try the example prompts, then do the Try it task with your employer's approved AI tool or a free one with nothing confidential. The skills work with any AI chat assistant, such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and Claude. You keep lifetime access, so you can come back whenever the tools change.

What will i learn?

• Explain in plain English what generative AI is and where it goes wrong
• Write clear prompts with task, context, format and tone, and refine the answers
• Protect personal and confidential information and follow your organisation's AI policy
• Check AI answers for made-up facts, bias and copyright problems
• Draft, rewrite and proofread emails, letters and reports with AI
• Summarise documents and meetings, and research topics with checked sources
• Use AI to explain formulas, clean data and present numbers in Excel and Google Sheets
• Build a personal AI toolkit and a simple AI guide for your team

Frequently asked question