AI Academy · Certificate course
Everyone has AI. Build the one that knows your business.
Most people use AI as a very fast search engine with good manners. They ask, they copy, they paste, they move on. This is the other thing: a self-paced course where you build an AI that knows your organisation, writes in your voice, follows your standards, and takes whole jobs off your desk while you keep the judgement.
Why this course
Better screenshots, same bottlenecks.
That is AI theatre, and most organisations are quietly stuck in it. A few people do genuinely impressive things while everyone else saves four minutes a day and wonders what the fuss was about. The difference is almost never talent. It is that nothing the good ones know has been written down where the tool can reach it.
You are the memory.
Every new conversation starts with you explaining the organisation again. Who we are, what we sell, how we write, what we never do. Same paragraph, every time, because the context lives in your head instead of in the tool.
It looks like it came from nowhere.
The content is good and the document is wrong. Wrong colours, wrong fonts, no logo, and fifteen minutes of fixing headings before it can go anywhere near a client.
The expertise is walking around.
One person has run the thing for nineteen years and none of it is written down. It is not that they are difficult. Documenting is a writing job, and it loses to real work every single time.
How it works
You are not watching a software demo. You have a job.
From the first lesson you work at Fernbank Group, a New Zealand owned company that supplies and services equipment for infrastructure and civil contractors. Hamilton head office, branches in Auckland and Christchurch, about 180 people, trading since 1988.
They are not a technology company. Neither, probably, are you. That is the point.
You are three weeks into a new role across operations, sales and finance, and Fernbank is bidding for the largest contract it has ever gone after. Submission is in six weeks. Everyone who should be working on it is already at capacity.
Every lesson opens with someone asking you for something, teaches you what you need, then sends you off to do it. Every exercise works with the Fernbank scenario, and every exercise works better with your own real work.
Swap Fernbank for your organisation and you finish the course with something you can use on Monday, not a folder of practice files.
Who you'll hear from.
- Mia Rawlings, GM OperationsShe hired you. Direct, warm, permanently three things behind.
- Pete Halloran, Sales DirectorHe owns the tender. Enthusiastic, slightly chaotic, generous with deadlines that have already passed.
- Raewyn, supplier qualificationNineteen years of judgement, none of it written down anywhere.
The curriculum
Four sections, from first prompt to unattended work.
Fifteen core lessons and nine checkpoints. Start, complete a task, pause, continue until you're done.
Foundations.
How the tool actually behaves, what should never go into it, and how to ask for work in a way that gets work back. Finishes with a real case study: read a tender document and pull out what matters.
- Meet Claude
- Safety first
- Prompting with purpose
- Chat, Projects, Artifacts and Cowork
- Case study: read the tender
Real work.
The highest-return hour in the course. Build the organisational memory that stops you re-explaining yourself, get documents coming out on brand the first time, analyse real numbers without inheriting confident nonsense, and get nineteen years of expertise out of someone's head in sixty-five minutes.
- Projects and organisational memory
- On-brand documents
- Working with data
- Research and evidence
- Capturing what is in someone's head
Agentic.
Move from chat to tasks that run across real files. Redesign one of your own workflows rather than speeding up a bad one, encode it as a Skill so it runs the same way every month, and get honest about what an agent can reach and where it has to stop and ask you.
- Cowork: from chat to task
- Redesign one workflow
- Build a Skill
- Guardrails and agent security
- Scheduled tasks and connectors
Wrap up.
Your first thirty days with Claude, as a plan rather than a feeling. What to do in week one, what to leave until the habit holds, and how to tell whether any of it is actually working.
- Your first 30 days with Claude
- Final checkpoint
Stop briefing your AI from zero every morning.
Start the courseWhat you leave with
Six things that exist when you finish.
Not notes, and not a certificate on its own. Every lesson ends with something you have actually made.
A working Claude ProjectThat knows your company, so you stop re-explaining yourself to a blank box every morning.
On-brand documentsRight colours, right fonts, right structure, the first time, without you fixing headings afterwards.
One workflow redesignedGenuinely reshaped around what the tool is good at, not the old process with AI bolted to the side.
A reusable SkillYour methodology written down once, so the output does not depend on who is at the keyboard.
A scheduled taskThat has done the work before you open your laptop, with a checkpoint where it stops and asks you.
A clear head on the limitsWhat an agent can reach, where it has to stop, and what you should never hand over.
Finish certified, not just informed.
Nine checkpoints sit through the course, one after each block of teaching, so you find out whether it landed while you can still do something about it. Complete every lesson and pass all nine and AI New Zealand issues your certificate of achievement.
Before you start
What it costs, and what you'll need.
What it costs
Prefer to spread it? An instalment plan is available at checkout, for the same total.
Training a whole team? Ask about group bookings.
Certificate of achievement issued by AI New Zealand. Not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Anthropic.
- A paid Claude plan with Cowork access. Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise. The free plan will not get you through Section 3, and we would rather you knew that now than found out on lesson 3.1.
- The Claude desktop app, on macOS or Windows, if you want Claude working directly with folders on your own computer. The course works without it. Section 3 is better with it.
- One folder of real work. Not sample data. Something you actually deal with. Pick it before you start.
- About two hours for the lessons, ideally across two or three sittings rather than one.
One honest note on time. Two hours covers the lessons. The exercises are built on your own work, and the good ones take longer than the video that introduces them. Section 2 alone can absorb an afternoon if you do it properly, and it is the part most worth doing properly.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions.
Do I need to be technical?
No. There is no code anywhere in this course. If you can write a process down in plain English, you can do everything in it, including building a Skill in Section 3.
I already use Claude every day. Is this too basic?
Section 1 will be quick for you, and it is meant to be. The course is built around the parts most daily users have never set up: organisational memory, brand control, workflow redesign, Skills and agent guardrails. If you have already built a Project with a curated knowledge base and a Skill that runs a monthly job, you are ahead of it.
Does this work if my organisation uses Copilot as well?
Yes. The organisational memory you build in Section 2 is a set of plain files, so it is portable to whatever tool you point at it. If Microsoft 365 is your main environment, look at the Microsoft Copilot course too.
Do you offer group discounts?
Yes. Groups of ten or more are $199 per person plus GST. Contact us to arrange it, and ask about running the course for your whole team.
Can I get a receipt?
A receipt is sent automatically when you purchase. If you need it resent, email hello@newzealand.ai.
Can I share my account with a colleague?
No. This is an individual membership for you. If several people need access, ask us about group pricing instead.
Disclaimer.
The certificate of achievement is issued by AI New Zealand. It is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Anthropic, and does not constitute Anthropic endorsed training.
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