A practical AI workshop for small business owners. Get your business out of your head.
Bring one repeated job your business still relies on you to remember, chase or sort. Leave with AI set up around your business and a working first version, tested with your real information and ready to use the next day.
Wednesday 14 October 2026, Patch Bournemouth
What this is
You run the business from your head, a notebook and a WhatsApp thread. Every sickness, rota change and holiday request comes through you. Nobody else could run a single day without asking you something first. You opened ChatGPT. It was fine. Everyone else's seems better than yours.
I was her. Two businesses, two kids, and I was trying to run the whole lot from memory. Chasing invoices from a shitty notebook. I built my way out, and the way I did it is what this room is for.
Book Bournemouth
Try it yourself
These are the three questions I ask before I hand anything to AI, and they are the spine of the third hour. Type one task. Answer honestly. Get told straight whether it is an AI job, a systems job, or a business decision.
1. Do I actually need AI for this, or could a simpler fix do it?
2. Am I using the right tool for this specific job?
3. Am I still doing the thinking, or has AI quietly taken that over too?
9:45 · Understand it
What AI actually is, in normal words. What it is good at, what it is bad at, why it makes things up, what you should never upload, and the difference between AI and automation. Three real stories from my clients, not a tool tour. You leave this hour thinking "oh, that is what it is for."
10:20 · Make it yours
Laptops. We set AI up around you (how you work, how you want answers, what it must never do) and then around your business, by having it interview you. Then the test: the same real question, asked before it knows you and after. That moment is the workshop. Everyone gets it.
11:05 · Put it to work
Get it out: everything your business relies on you to remember, find, chase or figure out, on paper. Sort it out: stop it, simplify it, systemise it, give AI a role, or keep it human. Then set up the one that fits, with your real information, and run it until it works.
12:10 · Keep it useful
A card in your own words: what I use AI for, when, what I give it, what I still check. Then round the room, one sentence each: what was AI not helping you carry at 9:30 that it is helping you carry now? Out by 12:30.
Book BournemouthWhy me
She cleans in Dorset. A specialist cleaning company owner booked me for AI help and a look at her marketing. The first honest answer was that AI was not her problem. Her Google Ads were quietly paying for clicks in London and the US, running a campaign for a service she does not sell, on an account her agency owned instead of her. We stopped the leak in the session, and the tool question she arrived with never came back up.
That is the job. I am an AI and operations strategist, and the only credential that matters for this morning is that I will tell you when AI is not the answer. Sometimes it is a shared calendar and a Sunday half hour. I will say so.
Not a one-off
A wedding coordinator carrying ten live weddings, a directory of over two hundred suppliers, hundreds of checklist items and every budget line for every couple, all in one human brain and a pile of spreadsheets. We built her business a memory. She opens one screen and the whole season is there. Nothing depends on her recall any more.
A wedding coordination business owner
Twenty minutes in she realised she was too close to her own business to see what she had already built. She went home, rebuilt her entire landing page that evening, and messaged me at 11pm buzzing.
A service business owner
A barrister with ADHD, drowning in case summaries, in a household that did not want AI anywhere near the work. The answer was one targeted tool: dictation that runs on his own machine, GDPR-safe, not general AI. "It absolutely blew me away, it allowed me to dictate German emails without missing a beat, and essentially renders my Dragon obsolete."
A legal professional, via LinkedIn
From the last room
"I thought I was already quite proficient with AI, as I use it daily in my business. I went along to Gemma's training session to explore any opportunities I might be missing. I learned about that and then some! I think whatever your current skill and usage, Gemma can help you uplevel!"
Attendee, Dorchester workshop, July 2026
No. Most of the room will have opened ChatGPT a few times and quietly decided everyone else is better at it. The first hour is the bit nobody ever explained properly. If you have never used it at all, you will be fine. If you use it every day, you will still get the before-and-after moment, because context is the thing almost nobody sets up.
No. A free account is enough for the day. Make it before you come, on the laptop you are bringing, and know the password. The paid versions are worth it afterwards and I will tell you why, but I am not going to make you buy one to be in the room.
A laptop, a charger, and one real thing from your business: a call recording or transcript, a voice note to yourself, a real enquiry email, or a photo of your to-do list. Swap client names out if you want. That is what we build with. You will get the full list by email the moment you book.
There is one sentence, once, at 12:22, and then you go home. Some people will find out in the room that their problem is bigger than one task. That is a diagnosis, not a sales tactic, and it is the kind of thing I work on privately. I will say so plainly and leave it there.
Email me at least seven days before and I will refund you. Inside seven days I have already paid for your seat, so I will move you to the next available run instead.
Anyone who wants a tour of forty tools, a prompt-writing masterclass, or their whole business automated before lunch. And anyone who wants me to do the thinking for them. AI should give you capacity back, not take your judgement. If you want to keep the judgement and lose the admin, you are in the right room.
Patch is on the first floor of Bobby's on Commercial Road. Nearest car parks are Avenue Road and the BH2 Leisure car park, a few minutes' walk. Exact directions come in your confirmation email.
Bournemouth
Doors 9:30, we start at 9:45 sharp, out by 12:30 with something working. Tea and coffee are on me. £197 is less than half what I charge for a single ninety-minute session, and you get three hours in a room with nine other people finding the same thing you are. Show up, do the work, and if you genuinely got nothing from it, I will refund your ticket. That is the only guarantee I make, because it is the only one I control.
Bournemouth
Wednesday 14 October 2026
Book Bournemouth, £197We use one optional cookie: the Meta Pixel, which helps us see if our ads work. Nothing loads unless you say yes. Full details in the cookie policy.