Course description

If your evenings disappear into quotes, emails, posts and paperwork, an AI assistant can take some of the work: a first draft, a tidier version, a list of ideas, a plain-English explanation. This course shows a UK sole trader or small business owner how to use ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot for those jobs, safely, honestly and within the rules, with you deciding and checking everything that goes out.

It's a full, practical course. There are 10 sections and 51 written lessons, each with a worked example and a Try it task using your own business. You follow three fictional businesses through 2026: Gwion, a sole trader plumber in Chester using ChatGPT; Sakura, who runs a gift shop in Shrewsbury with her assistant Aniela using Copilot with work accounts; and Grizel, who starts a garden maintenance business in Perth using the free Copilot app. Every section has a practice pack with prompt templates, checklists and spreadsheets, including a time audit, a prompt library, a content calendar, a cash flow sketch and a 30-day plan.

What you'll learn

• Getting started: what AI assistants do well for a small business and where they go wrong, a one-week time audit of your desk work, choosing between free and paid ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, and setting up safely.
• Using AI safely and honestly: checking for made-up answers, keeping customer data out, copyright, the UK rules on advertising claims and fake reviews, and a one-page AI policy.
• A prompt kit for your business: a quick prompting recap, then a business fact sheet, a brand voice sheet, customer profiles and a prompt library you can reuse every week.
• Marketing copy: website pages, product and service descriptions, newsletters within the email marketing rules, posts for your business listing and a realistic month of marketing.
• Social media posts: posts that sound like you, repurposing one idea for several places, when AI images mislead, captions, hashtags and alt text, and a fortnight's content calendar.
• Customer emails, replies and reviews: faster replies, complaints and saying no once you've decided, an FAQ page and saved replies, review replies and polite payment reminders.
• Quotes, proposals and paperwork: quotes where you supply every figure, proposals, invoice wording and payment terms, why AI shouldn't write your terms, and letters and forms.
• Admin and running the business: SOPs, checklists and templates, turning your own notes and voice notes into actions, fair job adverts and simple automations with a person checking.
• Money, planning and research: business plan drafts, a cash flow sketch, pricing from your own costs, spreadsheet formula help, research with sources you check, and where AI must stop on tax and legal questions.
• Your routine, your tools and your 30-day plan: whether a paid plan pays for itself, a weekly AI routine, your own 30-day plan, a case review of a flawed plan, and keeping up as tools change.

Who it's for

UK sole traders, freelancers and owners of small firms of roughly one to ten people, in any trade, who want to save time on desk work without risking their customers' trust. No AI experience is needed. If you've done Rootlet's AI at Work for Beginners, this is the next step: prompting basics get a short recap only, and everything else is about running your own business. The course gives general information, not legal, tax or financial advice, and shows you where to check. Every person and business in the course is fictional.

What will I learn?

• Find the desk jobs in your own business that are worth handing to AI, with a one-week time audit
• Choose between free and paid ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, personal and business accounts, and set them up safely
• Keep customers’ personal data out of AI tools and stay within UK rules on data protection, advertising claims, reviews and copyright
• Build a prompt kit: a business fact sheet, a brand voice sheet, customer profiles and a prompt library
• Draft website copy, product descriptions, newsletters, listing posts and social posts that sound like your business
• Write customer replies, complaint responses, review replies, payment reminders, quotes, proposals and letters faster, with you making every decision
• Turn notes into SOPs, checklists and meeting actions, and plan simple automations with a person checking
• Use AI as a sounding board for business plans, cash flow, pricing, spreadsheets and research, and write a 30-day plan for your own business

Frequently asked questions