The AI Lab
Most of us are still poking at AI. The Lab is where you build one real thing in your business every month.
A note from Suzi
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Why this exists
I’ve been working with AI now for a few years.
The hard part isn’t understanding AI. It’s knowing where and how it fits in your business.
Maybe you’ve had a play. Maybe you’ve read the newsletters, or listened to people you respect talk about it like it’s obvious. Then you’ve gone back to your actual business — the one with clients, staff, targets, and deadlines — and it hasn’t been obvious at all.
Most of what’s being taught about AI right now is about writing things faster. How to prompt to get captions, emails, posts. That’s the easy part, and honestly, I believe it’s the least valuable part. The real opportunity is underneath it: the systems, the processes, and the tools that run the business — the work that used to need another human. The benefit to a small business is phenomenal when it’s harnessed correctly.
Our twelve-month company group budget used to take me the better part of two weeks.
This year it took 4 hours.
That isn’t a writing task. That’s the better part of $10,000 in human resource savings. This has a meaningful impact on the business and the bottom line.
AI isn’t a tool you learn. It’s something you have to direct.
Brilliant work comes from a brilliant brief. That’s the part that gets skipped.
Working with AI is surprisingly like working with your team. It needs training, coaching, good quality briefs, and feedback.
AI is as much a leadership issue as it is a technical issue. Apply good leadership principles to AI and you will be ahead of 99% of the pack.
How it works
Learning. Building. Refining. Implementing.
For two Fridays each month we will meet to learn, build, refine, and implement. Each month builds on the one before — you’re not starting fresh every session, you’re stacking.
The AI Lab is designed to keep you up to date with what’s changing in AI tools — but more importantly, to help you learn and make progress on projects that are meaningful to you and your business, and that save you both time and money.
The cadence is simple. Session one — we focus on learning. Session two — we focus on building and implementing.
The learning session
AI is developing rapidly — unlike any technological change in history. It’s almost impossible to keep up. In the first session of the month we get up to date and look at what’s changed, what matters, and what to ignore.
We then dive into one practical method you can use straight away, and take a proper look at something that’s been built — how it works, and what it took to make it.
The session is structured simply, and in a very useful way:
- What’s changed, and what to ignore
- One reusable method, taught properly
- We take something that’s been built and open it up
- You leave with one thing to put in place
Two hours · recorded
The building session
You bring what you’re working on, we open it up, and we get it moving. Some months we’ll focus on your actual project. Other months you’ll be building alongside while we dive deep into someone else’s.
Regardless, this session is designed to get you unstuck, keep you moving, and get your projects completed and implemented.
- Bring what you’re working on
- Three or four projects to focus on each month
- We collectively support the projects advancing
- Leave with it working, or unstuck
Two hours · recorded, though much of it is working time
Friday 16 October
We start by setting up the infrastructure.
The first session is three hours, and most of it goes on one thing: setting up a place where everything your business knows actually lives — your voice, your brand, your products and services, your offers, your processes, your numbers — so that whatever you point at it has something real to work with.
This will set you up well to use any tool you want.
It matters that we do this first, and it matters that we do it properly. The biggest mistake I made early on was building everything inside one tool, so all of it lived there and none of it was portable. I’d start differently now. You get to start differently from day one.
You’ll leave with a short list to do before the first full session, so nobody spends month one getting organised. Everything after that settles into the rhythm.
What we build
Real things, not demonstrations.
Everything in The AI Lab comes out of work I’ve done inside our businesses — not a curriculum written for a course. Over the six months we pull these apart and rebuild them around your business. We can tackle challenges like…
- A twelve-month budget
- A live dashboard pulling your marketing, sales, Google, and social analytics all into one place
- An SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) system that writes and maintains itself
- A searchable database for testimonials and client reviews
- A sales targets system that updates with actual sales results
- Purpose-built assistants — landing page builders, script builders, and the like
- A marketing tracking system, so every campaign is measured properly
- Design guidelines, so what comes out looks like you made it
- The monthly bookkeeping pack that provides you with real-time data that matters to you
- A landing page and registration funnel you can build and publish yourself
- A brand voice guide, so what comes out sounds like you and not like a chatbot
- Meeting recordings turned into client-ready notes and action plans
- Job descriptions, onboarding packs, and role scorecards for your next hire
Some of these will be exactly right for you. Some won’t. That’s what the building session is for.
And honestly, what we can do is largely up to your imagination. But there is no doubt a best way to approach the process, and that is what we learn inside The AI Lab.
A note from me
The value isn’t in knowing AI. It’s in knowing what a business needs.
PJ (Peter Johnston)
HerBusiness
I’ve been working with AI for a couple of years, and building with it seriously for about the last twelve months.
Not marketing. I want to be clear about that, because marketing is where most of the noise is. I’m not especially interested in getting AI to write email or social posts, and I don’t think that’s where the value is for most small businesses. Where I believe the value lies is in infrastructure, transparency into performance, and systems: process design, and building tools that actually do work. The sorts of things that leverage both your time and your money, and give you an excellent return on investment.
Some of the work we’ve done has surprised me. We completed a group company budget that normally takes more than two weeks in a single afternoon. The dashboard that used to need several people pulling numbers together — hours every week — now assembles itself. We moved the entire business from one CRM to another — a job we’d been putting off for years — and it was comparatively painless.
If I’m honest about the size of it: the work AI is doing in our group of businesses is, without doubt, a full-time salary’s worth. There is no doubt in my mind about that. It’s a quantifiable saving to the bottom line.
Now, we’ve got plenty wrong along the way. The big one was building everything inside a single tool, so all of it lived there and none of it could move. That’s why the first thing we do together is build your infrastructure, so you can use any tool you like.
Of course, we’re still building, and what we’re building right now isn’t finished. That’s rather the point — I’m not walking you through a course that was written last year. I’m working on live projects all the time.
Let’s talk about marketing. We’ll touch it, because everything touches marketing, but we won’t be digging into writing marketing copy for pages, emails, and socials. That’s not my patch. And I’m not a technologist — there’s plenty I don’t know. What I’ve learned is how to ask, how to brief properly, and how to work it through until it’s done. You’ll watch me do that too.
And honestly, I think marketing is where AI is getting a bad rap. Poor use of it is producing an awful lot of slop, and we could all do with a little less of that.
What I’ll ask of you
Bring something real to work on.
The AI Lab will work if everyone turns up with actual work rather than hypotheticals. And I want this to be a practical and meaningful investment for you.
- One thing a month. One — not ten experiments. One real change in your business.
- Bring the half-built version. Nobody here is expecting finished.
- Say what you tried. That’s how the Lab gets good fastest.
- What’s said in the Lab stays in the Lab.
Before you apply
Who this is for, and who it isn’t.
This is for you if…
- You’re already using AI a bit, and you’re frustrated it hasn’t gone further
- You’re looking to make your business more efficient
- You want accessible, real-time data that you can act on and benefit from
- You’d rather build one useful thing than understand ten
- You’re willing to bring real work into the Lab
This isn’t for you if…
- You need someone to set up your accounts and show you the buttons
- You want a course on social media or email copy — that isn’t what this is
- You’d rather watch than build, and you don’t have anyone in your business who could do the building for you
- You’re looking for one-to-one consulting
There’s a short questionnaire once you register. I read every one, and if I don’t think it’s right for you I’ll say so and refund you in full.
The dates
Twelve Fridays, October to April.
All sessions run 10:00am – 12:00pm Sydney time.
The kick-off runs 10:00am – 1:00pm.
October2026
November2026
December2026
January2027
February2027
March2027
April2027
The founding group
Six months. $147 a month at the founding member price.
Non-members — $247 per month
Six monthly payments, in advance. All prices in Australian dollars.
Bring a team member
There will be a limit of fifteen businesses in the Lab. However, each business will be able to bring a second person from the same business for $47 a month. That person could be an assistant, someone who will do the building, or even a business partner.
This is the founding group. After this round the member rate will be $197.
What’s included
- A three-hour kick-off where we begin to build the infrastructure
- Two sessions every month for six months
- Every session recorded
- A private space to post progress between sessions
- Fifteen businesses in the Lab, and no more
Before you ask
A few honest answers
You should be using it a bit already and be frustrated it hasn’t gone further. If you’ve never opened one of these tools, this may not be the Lab for you right now — though often it’s just that the whole thing has intimidated you, and that goes once you’re in and applying it. If you’re not sure, say so in the questionnaire and I’ll tell you honestly.
Once you register you’ll get a short questionnaire. I read every one. If I don’t think the Lab is right for you, I’ll tell you and refund your payment in full. I’d much rather do that at the start than have you sit through six months of the wrong thing.
Yes, and I’d encourage it. More often than not, the person who’ll actually build the thing isn’t the owner. A second place from the same business is $47 a month, and they’re a full member of the Lab.
Every session is recorded, and there’s a private space to catch up and ask questions. The building sessions are largely working time, so there’s less to watch back — but they will be recorded nonetheless.
Neither. It isn’t consulting and it isn’t a mastermind. I facilitate the Lab, teach the method, and show you what I’m building myself. We all learn from and are inspired by every other business in it.
Because I’ve watched what happens with a one-day intensive. You learn a lot, you leave full of it, and you use about ten per cent. Adults don’t learn that way — we learn by doing one thing, using it, and building the next thing on top. So this is built the other way around: something to learn every month, something to build every month, and each month standing on the last.
This is the first time this program has been run, so I’ll be seeking your feedback the whole way through and adjusting as we go. If it’s needed and wanted, it continues — and your founding rate is locked in.
One last thing
Fifteen businesses. Starting 16 October.
If that sounds like your kind of Lab, click the Apply Now button and let’s find out whether it’s a fit.