Training: Demystifying AI Agents and First Steps Toward Automation

Summary

Most small businesses are comfortable prompting AI for a task in the moment, but few have taken the next step: letting AI work on their behalf, in the background, without being asked each time. This interactive workshop introduces AI agents in plain language and draws a clear line between prompting something yourself and having a workflow run on its own. Participants will see how agents already exist inside tools like Copilot, Gemini, and Claude, and will leave with two or three specific workflows in their own business worth automating first, along with the standards and oversight needed to do it safely.

Training plan

• What an AI agent actually is, and how it differs from asking a chatbot a question.
• The three stages: prompting something yourself, automating a repeatable task, and building an agent that runs a workflow with minimal supervision.
• Where agents already exist inside tools your team may already use, such as Copilot, Gemini, and Claude.
• The most common small business use cases: follow-ups, summaries, routing, reminders.
• A live walkthrough: what a simple agent actually looks like in action, from trigger to output to human review.
• How to identify two or three repetitive workflows in your business that don’t require your direct involvement every time.
• Why standardizing agent use across a team matters more than individual experimentation, and what happens when everyone builds their own version of the same workflow.
• The most common pitfalls: automating too much too fast, losing visibility into what the agent is doing, building on a workflow that wasn’t stable to begin with.
• Governance and accountability: who is responsible when an agent acts, what needs a human checkpoint, and what should never run unsupervised.
• What your team can set up directly versus what requires IT or a vendor.
• Next steps: a realistic path from a single automated task to a small, well-governed set of agents.

Benefits & measurable improvements

Participants will walk away with:

• A clear mental model of what an agent is and isn’t, removing the hesitation that keeps most teams stuck at the prompting stage.
• Two or three concrete, ready-to-build workflows identified for their own business.
• A shared standard for how agents get built and reviewed, so the team isn’t relying on individual employees improvising their own versions.
• Reduced duplication of effort across the organization, since one well-built agent can replace several people manually repeating the same task.
• A governance framework that keeps a human in the loop where it matters, reducing the risk of unsupervised automation causing costly mistakes.
• Confidence to take the first real step into automation without overcommitting or outsourcing it entirely.

Who it’s for

This training is ideal for:

• Small businesses that have completed foundational AI training and are ready to move past prompting into light automation.
• Leaders who want a shared standard for agent use before individual employees start building their own, uncoordinated workflows.
• Teams with clear, recurring tasks, such as follow-ups, routing, or recurring reports, that don’t need a human to start them every time.
• Organizations concerned about oversight and accountability as automation becomes part of daily operations.

Format

• Duration: 2 hours
• Delivery: In-person or virtual
• Approach: Interactive training combining practical exercises, real-world examples, and actionable takeaways.
• Language: English or French

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