Responsible AI for small business | 102 - Next steps (NZ)
Description
Ready to take AI further? Four sessions. Two weeks. Real results.
Learn to use AI the right way - ethically, safely, and with the lowest environmental impact
There are plenty of free AI courses right now - webinars, YouTube tutorials, government initiatives. Most are built for everyone, which means they're built for no one in particular. This one is built specifically for small business owners, by someone who uses AI every day in her own business and has three years of hard-won, real-world experience to share. Not textbook theory. Not a funded overview. Practical, honest guidance from someone who has done the work.
You've dipped your toe in. You're using AI for everyday tasks - drafting emails, summarising documents, doing research, creating content. It's saving you time and you can see the potential.
But you're still doing it one prompt at a time, starting from scratch each session, or carrying on in the same chat window and finding the answers getting worse or getting errors when it's too long, and you know there's more.
102 - Next steps takes you from occasional user to someone with reliable, repeatable AI go-to routines built into the way you work. Less experimenting, more doing. And always with the same commitment to using AI ethically, safely, and with the lowest environmental impact possible.
Small business realities
Sales, marketing, operations, admin, finance, customer service. AI won’t replace any of those roles. But it can make every single one of them faster, cheaper, less exhausting, and create new opportunities for your business.
After just two weeks, you could be:
Turning a sales methodology into a complete outreach process - emails, scripts, follow-ups - that brings new customer conversations in every week
Building your own branded proposal and report templates that AI fills out for you
Running competitor and market research in minutes rather than days
Creating marketing collateral - service overviews, website copy, social content - without a copywriter
Analysing your pricing and financials with AI as a thinking partner
Designing customer communications that actually convert
Building a simple AI tool specific to your business - a research assistant, a client briefing tool, a content generator
Doing in an afternoon what used to take a week
Why learn with Caroline
As a founder who has spent six years working alongside her own software development team building the S360 platform, Caroline was in early when generative AI became publicly available three years ago - not just using the off-the-shelf tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot, but going under the hood - connecting directly to the APIs behind ChatGPT and Claude to build her own AI-powered tools from scratch. No coding required on her part - but a deep understanding of how these tools actually work.
She's done the hard work of figuring out which tools to trust and why - including walking away from some that didn't meet her standards on privacy, ethics, or environmental impact. She knows the pressure small business owners feel to adopt AI quickly and keep up. She's navigated all of it in a real business, with real clients, under real pressure - and in this course she shares that experience openly, including the trade-offs she has weighed and the choices she has made in her own business.
She doesn't just teach this - she uses it. Caroline used Claude to translate a sales methodology into a complete outreach funnel for her own business - scripts, emails, follow-up sequences, CRM, the whole process - and now has new customers booking conversations with her every week. That's the kind of real-world result this course is built around.
When you learn from someone who has genuinely done the work - not just studied it - you get something no free course or funded webinar can offer: honest, lived experience.
Is this the right course for you?
102 is designed for people who have already covered the basics - either through 101 - First steps or on their own. You're ready for this course if you:
Have used AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot at least a few times
Are comfortable typing a prompt and getting a useful response
Have used AI for at least one or two everyday tasks - emails, research, writing, summarising
Understand the basics of what to put in and what to keep out
Are ready to stop dabbling and start building something more systematic
If you're brand new to AI, start with 101 - First steps first.
What kind of AI are we talking about?
Same as 101 - generative AI tools you talk to in plain English. We'll mainly use Claude for demonstrations, but everything you learn transfers directly to any generative AI tool.
What you'll cover
Session 1: Your AI playbook - reusable prompts, custom instructions, setting AI up to know your business
Session 2: AI as your thinking partner - decisions, planning, briefing complex work, not just writing
Session 3: Building something - use AI to create a real tool, document, or workflow for your business
Session 4: Choosing your stack and what comes next - tool choice, environmental/privacy considerations, where AI is heading
What to expect
Two sessions per week over two weeks, each 45 minutes online. Maximum six participants - kept deliberately small so everyone gets real help, not just a seat in a webinar. Teaching is recorded; hands-on work never is.
What you'll walk away with
You won't just be using AI - you'll be using it well, consistently, and in a way that's right for your business and the world around it.
You'll leave with:
Two or three go-to AI routines built around your actual work - tasks you currently do manually that you'll now do faster, every time, without starting from scratch
A simple, settled tool stack chosen for capability, privacy, ethics, and environmental impact - no more tool fatigue or chasing the next new thing
A clear view of where AI is heading and what that means for small businesses
A completed mini-project you can point to
Access to teaching recordings and supporting resources
This is a small, active cohort - come ready to participate, try things live, and bring your real work challenges.
Who it's for
Small business owners and their teams who are already using AI occasionally and are ready to make it a systematic, responsible part of how they work. No coding. Ever.
Haven't done 101 yet?
Buy both together for $320 and save $78 (20%) - the bundle takes you from complete beginner to confident, capable AI user in just eight weeks.
👉 101 - First steps: https://events.humanitix.com/responsible-ai-for-small-business-101-first-steps-nz
Lineup
Caroline Thalund
Caroline Thalund is a sustainability and business consultant with over 25 years of experience helping organisations work smarter and more responsibly. As founder and CEO of Sustainability 360, she works with businesses across New Zealand and Australia on ESG, B Corp certification, and practical capability building. A self-confessed tech enthusiast, Caroline has spent six years working alongside her own software development team building the S360 platform - so when generative AI became publicly available three years ago, she was in early. Not just using the off-the-shelf tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot, but going under the hood - connecting directly to the APIs behind ChatGPT and Claude to build her own AI-powered tools from scratch. No coding required. She's done the hard work of figuring out which tools to trust and why - including walking away from some that didn't meet her standards on privacy, ethics, or environmental impact. She knows the pressure small business owners feel to adopt AI quickly, the anxiety about getting it wrong, and the overwhelm of not knowing where to start. She's navigated all of it in a real business, with real clients, under real pressure - and in this course she shares that experience openly, including the trade-offs she has weighed and the choices she has made in her own business. Her approach is behaviour-change focused, jargon-free, and built around what actually works for busy people running real businesses. Not textbook theory.
Agenda
Session 1: Your AI playbook - reusable prompts, custom instructions, setting AI up to know your business
Most people use AI in a way that requires them to re-explain their business, their voice, tone, preferred grammar and their context every single time. This session fixes that permanently. You'll set AI up to know who you are, what you do, and how you work - including how you want it to behave, challenge you, and push back rather than just agree with everything you say. You'll also learn how to ask AI good questions - because when you can do that well, you don't need anyone else's prompt templates. You become the prompt.
Session 2 - AI as your thinking partner: beyond writing tasks
Most beginners use AI to write things. This session is about using it to think - working through real business decisions, stress-testing a plan, mapping a complex project, or getting unstuck when you don't know where to start. You'll work through one real business challenge of your own, using AI as the thinking partner rather than the answer machine.
Session 3 - Build something: use AI to create a real tool for your business
This session goes beyond using AI to produce words, and into using it to build things. Sometimes that's a one-off - a complex proposal, a funding application, a sales calculator, something that would have taken days and now takes an afternoon. Sometimes it's about setting up a repeatable process - a branded template, a client document, a content workflow you can run consistently and get the same quality result every time. You bring one real deliverable you currently produce manually, and leave having rebuilt it using AI - whether that's a one-time creation or a process you'll use every week.
Session 4 - Which AI tools are right for your business and next steps
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of AI tools out there, and new ones launching every month. Not all of them are equal. This session gives you the honest comparison most courses won't: How the main tools differ on capability, data privacy, ethics, and environmental impact, and why those differences matter when you're running a real business with real client data. Caroline shares which tools she uses, and why. You finish the session building your own simple one-page plan - covering which tools you'll use, what for, and when.
FAQs
- What happens if a facilitator is unwell?
A contingency date of Wednesday 11th of November is held in reserve if needed to reschedule (i.e. presenter illness etc.). Please block out that date as well.
- Can I get a refund?
No refunds are available unless the event is cancelled by the organiser.
- What if I buy a ticket but then can't attend the workshop on the day?
The workshop will be recorded (except for breakout rooms). If you miss it, you will receive the recording, key takeaways and all resources associated with the workshop.
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
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