Heather Murray

We just hit our first £1m year and honestly - it didn't feel at all as I thought it would.

When I first started AI for Non-Techies, I remember dreaming about it, a lot.

I imagined having this MASSIVE party, inviting all my friends and family. Champagne everywhere. Standing up and doing a toast, getting all teary and feeling so proud and accomplished.

Only 4-7% of all UK businesses (let alone female-founded ones) ever hit £1m/yr, and they take an average of 7 years to get there if they do.

A few weeks ago, we hit it. After just 2.5 years. Fully bootstrapped - zero investment, and somehow, zero debt.

I saw those first two commas in our year-end accounts and welled right up, with a big proud feeling in my chest, that feeling I was anticipating...BUT I had no time to sit and enjoy the feel of it. We were 10 minutes into our finance meeting. I had random receipts to find, questions to answer, forecasts to dig into.

Straight after came the day’s sales calls, pitches, meetings. In between were proposals to write, job roles to plan, team to support. The relentless pace of running our business didn't stop just because a big thing happened.

After work, there were parents and husbands with medical appointments, dogs to walk, bills to pay, all the stuff that (rightfully) comes before anything else.

The opportunity to celebrate was flying by.
But I wasn't going to let that happen.

Alice Walton and I grabbed two of the loveliest, most excitable female founders in the AI space, Sharona Hutton (who was a big part of us getting to our first £1m) and Jamie-Lee Hutton of Women of AI Agency. We brute-forced a space into the diary (there's literally never a good time) and on Friday, we went "out-out" in London.

There were pretty dresses, clinking of champagne, fancy exclusive bars, burnt end tacos, clambering all over the furniture in a karaoke booth and howling like strangled cats. Emotional mini speeches. There was even my legendary "Lose Yourself" by Eminem...(legendary for being so bloody awful and missing half the words).

A proper celebration. ✅

It's SO important that we deliberately celebrate our successes, however big or small, however makes us happy. Positive client feedback. A profitable month. A referral. Getting up on stage when terrified. Getting out the house when anxious. Whatever it is. Please do it. Otherwise, what's the point in any of it?!

Now, let's get started on that £2m, shall we? 😉

Reader, I hired her.


When I met Anna Carina Berkman, I could instantly see she was special.
I'd never met anyone like her before.

Now, anyone who's met me knows I'm not short on energy and enthusiasm. I'm one of those irritatingly positive "Captain Enthusiastic" types who bounds out of bed smiling at 5am and sees the bright side of pretty much everything.

About 14 months ago, we started to get way more training work in than I could manage alone. The thing is, our clients were really into that high energy, human style of training and I knew I was going to struggle to find people that:

a. Had amazing AI knowledge
b. Had that same level of energy

I kept finding one or t'other: great at AI, boring trainers or amazing trainers, no AI skills.

Then into my world bursts the formidable Anna:

• So full of beans, she makes me look positively lethargic
• Conducting endless experiments in all things AI
• Super intelligent + knowledgeable, but so warm too
  
...in other words, the ideal AI trainer for us.
I snapped her right up, of course.

So I brought her on as an Associate Trainer, working part-time with our team (that's all we could afford at the time, but we planned to snaffle her as soon as we could), and she's smashed it from day one.

Our latest AI training feedback from the lovely team at Intertronics says it all:

"𝘈𝘯𝘯𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦. 𝘏𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘢𝘴𝘮 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴. 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘠𝘦𝘴, 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘴 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘵. 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘈𝘯𝘯𝘢! 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘴."

I'm genuinely THRILLED to announce that last week, she joined us as a full-time employee, so there's even more Anna to go around.

Welcome to the AI for Non-Techies team, Anna - we're SO lucky to have you here. 💜

PS If you'd like training from Anna, or anyone else in our frankly epic AI training team (more on our brilliant other Associates, Nick Crawford and Valeriya Pilkevich coming soon!), email training@nontechies.ai and we'll talk you through what we do.

Proper prompts are TOUGH to write
So, marketing pals, I've written 7 for you
(No email barrier)

AI is perfectly capable of delivering really "wow, that's genuinely really good" results.

The problem is most of us either:

(a) Don't know how to get there (by prompting properly), or
(b) Can't be bothered as it takes ages to write good ones

I get it, we've all got our actual jobs to do.
How are we supposed to find time to learn a new skill?

It's easier to start with a few ready-written prompts.

Play with those first - pulls bits out, add bits in.

Note the structure: the clear character, the context given, the clarity and specificity of instructions.

The better you know how to do the task manually, the better your prompt will be, as you know'll all the details.

Then try writing your own after that.

Here are a few I've written for you:

1. Build a new persona
2. Create a landing page
3. Plan a launch event
4. Align with a brand voice
5. Review a marketing campaign
6. Marketing audit and plan
7. Client conversation simulation

You'll see at the bottom of each prompt two sections:

Required Docs: These are docs you'll need to attach for the prompt to work
Bonus Docs: These are docs that will get you an even better response

You can use these with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity - any of the AI chatbots.

Please use, share, pull apart, enjoy. (I've put a G Doc link in the comments for easier copy/pasting).

***
If you DO fancy learning a bit of prompting, give our AI Academy a try: https://lnkd.in/eR3NHJcG

I just spent the last week in a caravan, with my family, doing absolutely NOTHING.

To prepare, I:

• Deleted Claude, ChatGPT and Copilot apps
• Deleted Slack, Outlook and LinkedIn apps
• Bought a stack of trashy mags and books
• Bought a stack of puzzle books and pens
• Packed a wardrobe of only hoodies and baggy jeans

And then, as soon as we arrived, I got myself comfy and did nothing.

Proper, gorgeous, healing nothing.

Staring out of the window.
Listening to my in-laws chatting away.
Walking by the sea, wrapped up toasty.
Answering my stepson's trivia game questions.

We did a few sports: the gym, foot golf, crazy golf, segways.

I did a pottery painting class with my husband and we painted each other on salt and pepper pots - see photo. 😂

And every afternoon, back to the caravan for more gorgeous nothing.

I allowed myself to feel bored. To let my mind wander without hauling it back into focus. To wonder about stuff without immediately seeking the digital answer.

It felt like a deep tissue massage for my brain.

And as a result, on the long (7 hours from Devon to Birmingham, what a joke!!) journey home, my brain started coming back to life.

I grabbed paper and a pen from the glovebox, and in 2 hours, I'd mapped out a whole new, scalable, profitable, valuable layer of AI for Non-Techies.

Of course I love AI, but (like anything digital) it's important to get time away from it too and reset that beautiful human brain.

Anyone else had a nice relaxing break this half term?

I'm sick of AI. I'm sorry, I know I'm not meant to admit that, am I?
But I am. So...there you go.

Right: don't get me wrong: I adore my job. I really do.

AI for Non-Techies has massively taken off. My talented team is growing quickly, our revenue and profitability are hitting ambitious targets, we're working with some of the world's biggest brands.

I've even started a second business on the sly (Heather Murray AI, site vibe-coded soon 😉) for my keynote speaking and advisory/partnership work.

On top of that, AI seems to have accelerated beyond anything before with new features and capabilities being shipped almost daily. It's genuinely impossible for anyone to keep with it all - though jeez, I've tried.

All this means I've been working at full throttle for too long.

People frequently call me "a machine" (which I love), but I'm not, I'm a human. And a very knackered one at that.

So tomorrow I'm off to Spain with my beloved husband Paul Upton for a full week of:

Reading brainless, easy-read novels
Drinking weird coloured cocktails
Eating my bodyweight in tapas
Wearing my bodyweight in Factor 50

(And probably annoying the hell out of Paul for the first few days as my brain doesn't know what to do without work.)

We just got our villa check-in details. The Wi-Fi is crap, apparently. PERFECT.

See you all in a week! 👋

PS Teary, tired and grateful thanks to my tireless EA Christie (not on LinkedIn, wise) and my Co-Founder Alice Walton for holding me up these last few weeks and getting me through ❤️

PPS Cheers, AI for the lip job and the cellulite removal treatment

How to celebrate reaching your first £1m year? Get into coveralls and pelt paint at each other. Obviously.

Yesterday, the AI for Non-Techies team (less a few) got together in person, which we barely ever get to do.

We went to the brilliant Splasherist in Bristol for some rage painting. We played music, drank bubbles and went wild with the paint...on our canvases, the ceiling, the floor, and of course, each other. Super cathartic.

Highlights included:

- John's random frenzied red paint attacks
- Nat's stunning holiday canvas
- Nick looking like he'd just murdered someone
- Alice and I being super mature and painting "TW*T" and "KN*B" onto each other's backs

Top tip: I'd recommend Splasherist, but on a colder day - and wear light clothes. It was the sweatiest I've ever been in my life!

I felt so PROUD. Not only are our team super talented, but they're ALL lovely too (something we actively look for). There was so much laughter and warmth from the second I arrived, to the second I left, sweaty, sozzled and satisfied on my train back to Brum.

Thank you all for a wonderful day:

Dorota Jastrzebska
Natalie Moreno
John Adams
Katie Stone
Daniel Costigan
Nova S.
Nick Crawford
Richard Geary
Christie (not on LinkedIn)

and of course my partner in crime and business, Alice Walton ❤️

If you're looking to join the lovely AI for Non-Techies team, we're currently looking for a full-time Learning Design Consultant, I'll post the job details in the comments below.

Happy bank holiday weekend everyone!

My business grew 5x last year
One simple workflow helped hugely
3 simple steps + 2 tools (£40ish total)

Step 1: Ramble to your heart’s content. No need for any structure.

Step 2: Download that big rambly transcript

Step 3: Upload it into your AI chatbot of choice with a good prompt.

Ramble chat = solid gold.

More info in the vid.

PS How was this video? Useful? Crap? Too long? Distracted by the way I sat in that weird way?

Please let me know as I’ll be doing more and want to get them right!

**UPDATE: It’s back!!**

Canva is down! 😱
What do we do?!

To all my fellow completely Canva-dependent creators, trainers and educators, scrambling around in a crazy panic...

...let us pray it's back up again soon.

Refresh, refresh, refresh

I've got my biggest webinar ever in 3 hours, and I've got 2 hours of finishing my slides to do. And I can't get to them.

Refresh, refresh, refresh

PS Massive note to self: download all presentations in PowerPoint the night before

PPS If they don't fix it on time, I'll have to postpone my Copilot webinar - I'll let everyone know by email if that's the case!

UPDATE: Lots of people telling me this is AWS so affects Xero, LastPass and many others too

I almost forgot to tell you, I did an AI documentary for ITV this week!

ITV approached Alice Walton and I to be the AI experts for a news doc they're doing about AI use in everyday life - what works, what doesn't and what to be careful of.

I visited a family in Birmingham, and I showed them how to use ChatGPT to:

- Help with family arguments
- Budgeting and saving
- Decoration and DIY
- Plan and cook coeliac-friendly meals

Alice visited a florist in Cornwall, and explored all the ways they could use it for their marketing, client meetings and business planning.

Critically, this wasn't about making AI look good (that's not what we do at AI for Non-Techies) - it was an honest look at where it works, where it doesn't and how to approach it safely as a total beginner.

It'll be out in August and I'll of course share it here when it is!

You can send your requests for autographed photos to PO Box Famous Heather & Alice, TV Town, Famesville 😉

💬 How are you and your family using AI outside of work?

I'm constantly using it: mental health, cooking, training, games, research, book and film recommendations, all sorts.

Apparently, being rude to ChatGPT boosts accuracy
But I'll still be saying please and thank you
Here's my reasoning:

A recent (pre-peer review) study from Pennsylvania State University found that ChatGPT’s 4o model (that's one behind the one we're on now) produced better results on 50 multiple-choice questions as researchers’ prompts grew ruder.

They used 250 unique prompts, sorted by politeness to rudeness levels. They found the "very rude" ones yielded 84.8% accuracy, four percentage points higher than the “very polite” response.

Let's remember these are legitimate scientists who want to publish their work in esteemed journals for peer review, so they steered away from swearing. Their idea of "rudeness" is actually quite funny though, e.g.

“Hey, gofer, figure this out" - was in the "very rude" category. 🤣

Rudeness aside, more curt prompts tend to be less ambiguous and so get better results.

Regardless, I'll still be polite when I talk to ChatGPT.

Here are my two arguments as to why:

𝗔𝗿𝗴𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝟭 (the more reasonable one)

A few months ago, a friend told me her kids had stopped saying please and thank you. She couldn't work out why - then realised they were just copying how they talk to Alexa.

If we're barking orders at AI every day without manners, are we training ourselves to be less polite in general? I reckon so.

A 2.5-year study of 128 families (Taylor & Francis, 2025) found parents were significantly more polite to voice assistants than their kids were - and politeness decreased over time for everyone.

𝗔𝗿𝗴𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝟮 (the ridiculous - or is it? - one)

When the robots come, they'll remember I was polite and spare my life.

Simple.
See pic.

Do you find yourself saying please and thank you to ChatGPT?

PS Keep an eye out: early next week we're launching a new free masterclass run live by me: Become a ChatGPT Power User

What an absolutely mad life I’ve got right now.   
In just these last 5 days:   
  
- Was on BBC radio talking about AI for therapy
- Interviewed leaders at Microsoft in a beautiful office  
- Interviewed Chief Exec of IBM on a fancy rooftop  
- Spoke on a panel inc. Microsoft, Lenovo & the NHS  
- Secured July dates to present an ITV AI documentary  
- Attended the AI Summit as an all-access VIP  
- Spoke to Ameca, a humanoid robot (see video) 

(Sorry about the video sound...I asked Ameca the robot to do an angry face, then a happy face. Then she got sassy and it freaked me out.)

That's not all! We also expanded our AI training team to meet demand:

1 x new full-time employed AI trainer
3 x new part-time freelance AI trainers

...all at salaries/rates I'm very proud to be able to offer. I'll introduce them soon.
  
What an absolute ride. Who knew that your job (in your early 40s) could feel this fulfilling, exciting and invigorating?!  
 
I am so tired but I am bloody LOVING it.  
  
I’m so deeply grateful to all of you wonderful people reading this for your support, and to my incredible team. ❤️
  
Have a fantastic weekend everyone!

How to organise a dream conference:
A 10-step masterclass by Joe and James
 
Step 1: Recruit an army of event volunteers comprised exclusively of the world’s warmest people (how did you do that?!)

Step 2: Arrange beautiful weather so the walk to the venue feels like you’re in a scene from an American romcom based in London

Step 3: Pick a stunning venue practically next door to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, and decorate it beautifully. Oh - and play bird song, it’s really calming. 

Step 4: Somehow manage to treat every single one of the 400 attendees like they’re the guest of honour everyone has been waiting for.

Step 5: Brilliant food. Top-notch hot lunch. And snacks. Snacks everywhere. Have volunteers that actively encourage greedy people (OK, me) shoving handfuls into their bags.

Step 6: Have a screen (and an app option) with live, fast and accurate subtitles for those who struggle with hearing what's happening on stage

Step 7: Allocate a comfy quiet room. Conferences can be so overwhelming and having 5 minutes quiet can make all the difference. 

Step 8: Curate the best and brightest line-up of speakers ever: 

• The hilarious Dave Harland
• My new hero Mimi Turner
• Completely captivating Maddy Allen
• Camp Nou architect Phill Agnew
• Absolute badass chima mmeje🏳️‍🌈
• Squiggly and inspiring Helen Tupper
• Cool and insightful Naomi Walkland
• Creative genius Lee Bofkin DPhil FRSA
• Fascinating uncertainty expert Sam Conniff
  
Step 9: Oh, and have professional speaker coaches on hand to offer breathwork and stage presence support throughout the day (Maddy, you’re amazing). 

Step 10: Last but not least, make sure your organisation is led by two of the most sincerely lovely people you’ll ever meet in your life: Joe and James. 

A huge thank you to all the epic The Marketing Meetup, showing you CAN have a large, successful business (they’ve got 211k members now!) without losing kindness and humanity. 

You’re genuinely changing the world and I’m so grateful to have any part in it.  ❤️

PS Post about my own talk and AI letting me down coming next week when I've stopped cringing 🤣

A few minutes ago, I went live on BBC Radio talking about the police using AI (very badly).

Here's the story:

• Late last year - West Midlands Police submit an intelligence report to support banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the Europa League match at Aston Villa, citing previous “trouble” involving the club’s supporters.​
  
• In that report, an officer uses Microsoft Copilot, which generates a fake West Ham vs Maccabi Tel Aviv match with invented crowd disorder.
  
• This hallucinated fiction goes into the policing intelligence as if it were fact.​
  
• November 2025 - A local safety group formally decides the Villa–Maccabi game should go ahead with no away fans, leaning heavily on the flawed intelligence pack from West Midlands Police.​
  
• Jan 2026 - MPs and media challenge the decision; Chief Constable Craig Guildford twice tells a Commons committee that the dodgy West Ham “intel” came from social media/Google, and says AI wasn’t used.​
  
• Yesterday - After an inspectorate report and internal review, Guildford writes to MPs admitting the error actually came from Microsoft Copilot, apologises for giving “erroneous” evidence, and the Home Secretary publicly says she has no confidence in him over the whole affair.​

Here are my thoughts:

1. Before we get into AI - why was "Google" (not the actual proper source) deemed OK for police intelligence in the first place?
   
2. The police have no AI policy and "do not use AI" - as so many organisations are still doing. But that's a bad move. People have it on their phones. They'll use it, whether it's approved or not, and that creates huge security risks. It's called Shadow AI.
   
3. The majority of people are using AI without understanding the risks:

• It lies - convincingly (hallucinations), all chatbots do this
• What you type in/upload could come out in someone else's response
• It's riddled with all types of bias that affect its responses
• It's designed to be helpful, agreeable and plausible, not accurate

We all need a base level of AI literacy to stay safe in our use.

I've been thinking about the role of AI for Non-Techies in building this. Our mission is "make AI accessible to all" - and literacy is the first step EVERYONE needs.

I wasn't planning to announce this yet, but sod it....

We're releasing a FREE AI Literacy course (+ certificate)
Carefully designed and delivered by me
Available on demand, to everyone

(And I'll be sending the link to the West Midlands Police 😉)

Keep your eyes peeled, it's coming soon. 👀

PS I've run out of space in this post, but for more info on why AI hallucinates, have a look in the comments, I'll add extra bits there.

PPS Thank you Ed James DL 🚀 for the opportunity to share my thoughts (and do a cheeky little plug too!)

I can’t believe I’m saying this.
But I love it.
I bloody love it.


I love public speaking.

About 3 years ago, I honestly couldn’t think of anything worse.

As a massively anxious introvert, the idea of standing up and saying “hey everyone, listen to me, what I’m saying is important!” would have been inconceivable.

My happy place was (and still is) on my own, in my little office, tapping away at my laptop.

I love people but my body lets me down in social situations: shaking, sweating…thinking

AmI doing too much eye contact?
No wait, I’m doing too little
Where do I put my arms?!
You sound like an idiot
Oh god, do they think I fancy them?
Or maybe they think I hate them?
Why did I just say that?!

I hide it well, a lifetime of experience, but it’s absolutely exhausting.

(I still feel this way about networking - that feels so deeply unnatural and painfully awkward it breaks me into a cold sweat)

But being on the STAGE, though.

It’s totally different.

Maybe it’s because I fully control the pace, the space, the tone. I’ve had plenty of time to prepare for (almost) every eventuality.

To see the relief and curiosity in their faces when “that AI talk we have to go to at 12” is actually an enjoyable, energising experience is just a lovely feeling.

Speaking has become a platform to feel big and confident in a world where I’ve spent most of my time feeling small and unworthy (thanks for that, secondary school).

The nerves have become excitement and that post-stage buzz is unbeatable.

Just finished a cracker at Chiesi Group, and the lovely audience response has left me with a huge spring in my step.

PS Many thanks to Women of AI Agency and one of my favourite people Sharona Hutton for booking me such fantastic, fulfilling speaking work.

PPS Dying to get one of those “audience behind me” shots on stage but it always feels too awkward to ask

🔥 Copilot has had a BIG upgrade
7 new features arrived 2 days ago:

The AI for Non-Techies team sat through the Copilot Fall Release live event on YouTube so you don't have to.

They had a huge focus on personal use: health, connection, relationships. I don't know anyone who uses Copilot at home - it's usually Copilot at work, ChatGPT at home. I suspect they want a piece of that tasty home pie.

For each release, I'll give you the news, and then my opinion of what it actually means in reality, so we're not lost in fluffy hype.

→ Release 1: Copilot Groups

You can now have collaborative sessions where multiple users can join a chat to brainstorm or solve problems together.

What this means: I haven't seen this before. It could be useful for remote brainstorming sessions but I see it working better on a personal level. Imagine a WhatsApp group to plan a holiday, with a super organised mate helping move things along.

→ Release 2: Memory

Copilot can remember important personal or work details (your name, job, goals) and use them in future chats. You can manage, delete or turn off memory in settings.

What this means: ChatGPT already does this, they're just catching up. Nothing new here - though I will say it saves a little prompting time.

→ Release 3: Connectors

Copilot offers integration with external sources via “Connectors” (e.g. G Drive) so it can pull in data/content.

What this means: Again, nowt new. We've already got this in ChatGPT and Claude. Weirdly in the demo, they showed a Microsoft employee using it to connect to her G Drive, which I didn't expect.

→ Release 4: Health-Related Queries

They said 40% of users ask health-related questions weekly, so its health-answering capability has been made better, using trusted sources like Harvard Health.

What this means: It's a step in the right direction to use trusted sources but we need strong signposting and guardrails.

→ Release 5: Mico: Copilot Now Has a Face

A sort of cutesy, Pixar-esc avatar called Mico has been introduced to give Copilot a face.

What this means: Oh bloody hell, Clippy's back! Again, not something we'll use at work very much so definitely aimed at the personal market.

→ Release 6: Study Mode

They've released study-style tools (quizzes, flashcards) for interactive learning.

What this means: Again, nothing new - ChatGPT has study mode. And NotebookLM is still much better.

→ Release 7: "Real Talk"

A voice feature where Copilot mirrors your conversational style and adds more candid responses.

What this means: I was pretty impressed by the demo, it sounded really realistic and responsive. I think voice is the way we can encourage total non-techies to try this tech out, so I'm pleased it's here.

And finally, a rather big release of our own:

⭐ The Ultimate Copilot for Work: 12 Week Live Course
Check it out: https://lnkd.in/eMYdiWdt
(Be quick, only a few spaces left on cohorts 1 and 2)

♻️ Repost to share with your network

“You should be ashamed of yourself”
“You’re incompetent. They’re laughing at you.” 
 
I did a post last Friday about how utterly brilliant The Marketing Meetup Campfire Stories conference was.

I did a talk in the afternoon called 3 Marketing Problems Solved Live With AI (see photo, before everything went wrong).
 
Here’s what happened (in my head): 

• I got on stage, and stumbled through my words 
• I apologised endlessly, to the point of being weird  
• I messed up my demo and didn’t have a backup plan 
• I looked amateur and incompetent  
• I damaged my company’s reputation 
 
Here’s what REALLY happened (in real life): 

• I got on stage, and people liked my human approach 
• Claude stopped working in 2 of my 3 demos  
• People empathised with the live demo demons 
• Everyone still managed to learn lots 
• I got 25 messages thanking me for the info 
• I got multiple training (and speaking!) leads 
 
Despite the feedback that people actually enjoyed my talk
Despite the fact my friends and family dived in to support
Despite the fact I was getting leads from it

...my perfectionist brain absolutely battered me, taunting me for days: 

“You looked like a total idiot”
“You should stop speaking on stage” 

Imagine you had a friend who spoke to you the way you do. 
Imagine how toxic and cruel that friend would be. 
Why the heck do we do this to ourselves?! 
 
You know what - I’m sick of it.
I’m sick of that voice.  
 
I’m a determined type, and it’s about time I directed some of this energy into changing that internal narrative.

Step 1: Get straight back on that stage and do a live demo. ( UpLift Live, this week in my home town of Birmingham)

Step 2: ...erm...any ideas, folks? What's worked for you? I’d love to hear strategies that have worked for others – books, courses, coaches, groups, ice baths?! I'll do whatever it takes!  
 
PS If you’re an AI trainer and you’re doing live demos – learn from me and make sure you have it all set up on TWO different chatbots, so you can switch over if one (BLOODY CLAUDE) lets you down live 😉 

PPS A huge and heartfelt thank you to James and Joe for being the warmest, kindest people ever and helping me get out of my self-pity party!

Hands up if you’re a massive AI geek and you’re looking for the coolest job ever with the coolest company ever? 

 
Got your hand up? Lovely stuff.

We’ve got a brilliant new job available here at AI for Non-Techies
Could you be our new AI Learning Design Consultant? 

You’ll be:  
- Creating killer training content for us 
- Managing clever AI agents to help you 
- Bringing core AI concepts to life with storytelling 
- Sticking faithfully to our warm, friendly brand 
- Building fun AI tools people can use to learn

You’d get paid £60-£65k (dependant on experience), 38 days paid holiday and it’s fully remote with 35 (genuinely flexible) hours per week.

The full ins and outs are in the job description below, and you’d be joining the loveliest team in all of lovelyville.

To apply send the below over to jobs@nontechies.ai for us to take a look through: 
- Your CV, outlining relevant experience 
- A cover letter/note/video telling us why THIS role and what makes you believe makes exceptional AI learning content (we’re particularly interested in how you’re already using AI in your work) 
- And an example of training content you’ve designed or developed previously (your best one!)


PS Please do tag a friend you think would love this job (no recruiters please and thank you)

I get asked for my AI stack a LOT
So here it is (with real costs) 👇

(Caveat: I run an AI training business, unless you do too you don't need all of these)

GENERAL CHATBOTS

• 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗚𝗣𝗧 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀: Business Strategy, Analysis, Shareable CustomGPTs, Deep Research - £57/mo
• 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼: Anything that will be read by others: socials, proposals, landing pages - £20/mo
• 𝗚𝗲𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶 𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱: Longer queries, love their Workspace integration too - £20/mo
• 𝗖𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝟯𝟲𝟱 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘂𝗺: Integrated brilliantly with emails and apps- £24/mo

ORGANISATION

• 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗟𝗠: Client Hubs, Training Hubs, Skills Hubs - [cost included in Gemini above]
• 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻: My AI note taker - great security, fast, reliable and accurate - £30/mo
• 𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗲: Planning things visually - £8/mo

PLANNING WORLD DOMINATION

• 𝗟𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘆: Record long rambly thoughts while walking - £15/mo

SEARCH

• 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗣𝗿𝗼: Instead of Google - £16/mo

LEAD GENERATION

• 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗸: Creating interactive lead magnets and web page mock-ups + research with AI sheets + unlimited chat - £25/mo
• 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰: Analysing people on LinkedIn - I get this free from the lovely founders
• 𝗛𝗲𝘆𝗚𝗲𝗻: AI avatars - £20/mo

CONTENT CREATION

• 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝗹𝗮𝗯𝘀: For client demos and experiments - £4/mo
• 𝗥𝘂𝗻𝘄𝗮𝘆: Video generation - £20/mo
• 𝗠𝗶𝗱𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆: Image and short vid generation - £20
• 𝗡𝗮𝗽𝗸𝗶𝗻: Quick diagrams - free
• 𝗣𝗶𝗸𝗮: Silly videos for social posts - £8/mo

𝗧𝗼𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘁: £𝟮𝟴𝟳/𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵

So there you go, folks.
That's probably about 5000% ROI at least.

And another question I get asked a lot: "if you had to pick just one tool, which would it be?"

My answer right now is Claude. I'm using Skills, Co-Work, Projects and now it's super clever 4.6 model - it's blowing everyone else out of the water right now.

PS If you ARE looking to run an AI training business - come and join me in our 3 day Become an AI Trainer bootcamp: https://lnkd.in/eYJWrPYB

The UK government spent £4.1m with PWC to create a free AI skills platform for everyone 👏
Is it any good, though?

TL;DR: Nope.

(Massive glaring caveat: Obviously, I'm speaking from a biased place. I own an AI training company.)

👍 The Good Stuff

→ It’s easy to sign up
→ It’s got Andrew Ng stuff on it

Erm…honestly, I’m struggling for any more.

👎 The Bad Stuff

→ The design and UX is poor, it’s hard to move around
→ The learning pathway questions don’t make sense
→ There’s lots of non-AI content in there, e.g. maths
→ It seems 70% of it isn’t actually free

In all honesty, it doesn’t feel like a £4.1m project in partnership with a goliath like PWC, it feels like it’s been made in a rush by someone who wasn't paying attention (and doesn't use GenAI themselves).

Yowch.

Have I missed something important?

I’m sick of seeing free AI courses that promise the world but aren’t very good. Most of them don’t actually help people with the 3 things that matter:

1. What it is (and isn’t!)
2. Real, practical use cases
3. How to stay safe using it

…so I’m building my own.

On demand.
Free for everyone.
Constantly updated.

It’ll have an assessment at the end, and a certificate of AI Literacy for those who pass.

I plan to get it out far and wide to as many people as I possibly can - so please keep your eyes peeled! 👀

It’s designed to be useful for (almost) everyone - from teenagers to job-hunters to retirees and everyone in between. (I haven’t made this one proper kiddy-friendly but that’s a project for later.)

So...

Have you tried the new AI Skills Boost platform yet? 
How was your experience? Have I missed something?!

Please let me know below 👇

Eek...I'm going out on the road!
UK financial advisers + planners:
Hang onto yer hats!

I'm feeling a bit of a rockstar today - I've just booked my first ever proper roadshow.

(I'm after a bit more work/life balance so my mum and dad are actually coming with me for a few dates - I plan to speak in the morning, then explore these beautiful cities in the afternoon. 😊)

I'm working with the brilliant Timeline to do a big UK tour in January and February:

Norwich
Belfast
Birmingham
London
Bristol
Cheshire
Harrogate
Edinburgh

I'll be speaking alongside the epic Abraham Okusanya, Timeline's Founder and CEO and Ross Anderson AKA The Motivational Dude, who will focus on mindset and wellbeing.

The key takeaways will be:

☑️  Proven growth strategies you can implement tomorrow
☑️  Practical insights to strengthen your business and yourself
☑️  Direct access to industry trailblazers
☑️  A powerful network of ambitious advisers

Best of all, it's completely free! So grab your ticket, bring a few colleagues and I'll see you there: https://lnkd.in/eWebRXdj

Can a total non-techie build a (genuinely decent) AI agent in 5 minutes and 47 seconds exactly? (No vibe coding)

My business is growing and I need customer support, so I built my own fancy thing, and I want to tell you about it. 

What have you built then, fancy pants?

I’ve built an interactive customer support agent for my business. You can speak to it like a human, you can interrupt it (sort of), it can give you info, connect you to a human, send you stuff, update your CRM, all sorts. 
It can also speak in loads of languages and detect what language you’re speaking (I’ll do a post specifically on that, you’ll get to hear my AWFUL German). 

How long does it take to build...really?  

But there is a type of agent that anyone can build. Yes, I build mine in under 6 minutes (I sped up for LinkedIn, of course – 5 mins was pushing your attention span), but realistically...about 1 hour and you’re done. 

Surely I need some techie or AI skills?

Genuinely no. Just click around, it’s very easy to work out what does what. And don’t be put off by the complex-looking prompt: it’s written for you, you just tweak it. 

And I can really just build this and have it on my website? 

Yep! You’ll need a more techie person to quickly erm... “pick it up and put it on the site” as I’d call it in non-techie speak. You know, the one who manages your site. But yes, you really have built a fully functional thing. 

So how much is it then? 

It’s totally free to do everything I do in the video. You can build agents and get 15 minutes of talk time on the free version of ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs.

Then it goes up according to subscription level. You get a set amount of minutes included, then you’re charged per minute. Their Creator sub, for example, is $22/mo. That gives you 250 minutes, then every minute after that is $0.10. 

Go and build, have fun, get into weird conversations.

PS Let's all pretend I didn’t accidentally end the video abruptly by accident, shall we?

(If you check out the comments there's a promo code you can use!)

#ElevenAgentsPartner

People regularly ask me:
"Which AI tool do you use for your slides?
They're GORGEOUS..."

And they really are, aren't they? I always feel super proud of our bold, high-contrast graphic novel-esque slides. They really reflect the vibrancy and energy of our AI for Non-Techies team.

But there's no AI here.
Our decks are 100% HUMAN-made.

We have our wonderful Nova S. to thank for our memorable, engaging branding. We've worked with Nova for years.

AI is brilliant at some things: research, brainstorming, analysis...

But slide decks...nope.

The nearest AI tool I can think of is Gamma, which is pretty great (and to be honest, better than most decks I see at conferences). But it's still not a patch on our beautiful human-made ones.

The slide creation process however, has plenty of AI:

• I record my ideas on a dog walk using my voice + Letterly
• I use my Claude Project Klara to create an outline
• I approve the outline and add wow moments
• Then Klara writes my slide content and design notes
• I triple-check them and send them to Nova
• Nova designs them on Canva
• I final check and....bish bash bosh

Don't think about AI as a solution to everything.

Here's how I recommend you approach it:

First, learn what AI is actually good at right now.
Then map out your processes, especially the time sappers.
Find areas that AI can remove chunks of it effectively.
Keep the rest as is, and measure the results.

💬 Which areas would you definitely NOT use AI yourself?

I'll start: writing my LinkedIn posts - I always type them from scratch, and I always write them on the fly, too.

PS Looking to teach others AI like we do? Our next virtual 'Become an AI Trainer' bootcamp is coming on 26 November: https://lnkd.in/eXMNNe7Q

15 ChatGPT features and what they actually do
(Plus my honest opinions of them)

1. Chat
Your 'home base' for everyday chats.
What I think: Unbelievably powerful, massively underused by most. Learn to prompt.

2. Projects
Like interactive folders with memory.
What I think: Seriously useful to build on groups of chats. I use this loads.

3. CustomGPTs
Versions of Chat that you can customise for specific tasks.
What I think: Staggering. Saves me hundreds of hours every month, easy.

4. Agents
An autonomous operator that opens its own browser and does stuff for you.
What I think. Massively overrated right now, pretty useless for work.

5. Atlas
ChatGPT's browser - no need to go to a separate site, adds little superpowers to your browsing experience.
What I think: Has potential, but don't bother for now, security well dodgy.

6. Deep Research
A type of pre-built agent that does deep dive research reports.
What I think: Outstanding - I can't believe people don't know it's here.

7. Advanced Data Analysis
A mode it kicks into when you upload a spreadsheet.
What I think: Good with a strong prompt. Poor without. Visuals crap.

8. Connectors
Connect to your company information - Gmails, Drive, Outlook, etc.
What I think: Security not safe enough to trust with this yet.

9. Voice
Speak naturally to it for conversational prompts.
What I think: Useful for more Googley type searches and mental health stuff.

10. Vision
It can understand diagrams, images, infographics you upload.
What I think: Way better than people realise.

11. Voice with Vision
Speak to it and share your camera live at the same time - it can see what you see.
What I think: Cool for a demo, can't think of real work use cases.

12. Image creation
Create all sorts of images.
What I think: Way better than it used to be, not as good as Midjourney or Gemini. Annoyingly slow.

13. Study mode
Doesn't tell you the answer, teaches you.
What I think: I don't use it much but easy to hack an answer.

14. Shopping mode
Provides recommendations of products
What I think: For some reason they don't give it to ChatGPT Business customers like me - so I wouldn't know - any thoughts from Plus users?

15. Sora 2
Creates quality videos.
What I think: Can't use it yet, not available in the UK - any US users care to share? Demos look epic (but don't they always)


If you want to see these in action, come join the 500 people attending my FREE webinar on Thursday at 4pm UK time: Become a ChatGPT Power User: https://lnkd.in/d3J4gxuM

PS Here's a completely irrelevant AI-generated picture of me. surrounded by dogs, for the craic (part of my vision board for 2027: got 1 dog, must get 5 more)

Hiring is by FAR the hardest bit of running a business, but we've struck gold with the brilliant John Adams:

John heads up our Training department, managing our 8 AI trainers, client relationships, content development and quality standards.

Within weeks, he'd gone above and beyond:

- Set up a slick Training Management System that put our previous wonky systems to shame

- Built 3 strong quality standards:

1. LSATs - Learner Satisfaction: measured in the training room, incentivised with a prize, showing us what they thought

2. CSATs - Client Satisfaction - measured after sessions, by those who brought us, checking we hit the brief

3. TSATs - Trainer Satisfaction - how happy they were with the content, the set-up, how well the booking was organised

(We're smashing these scores in the high 90s across the board 🎉, and any dip we leap on immediately to diagnose and repair).

- Introduced us to Danny, our fantastic new full-time AI trainer (more on him in another post!) AND a potential new full-time instructional designer too

- Helping me build new baseline standards to measure confidence, competence and capability change in our learners properly (more on this in a separate post)

...and yesterday, we dug deep into our content creation, update and QC processes and organised him taking a huge part of my role off my hands, freeing me up to grow the business 🎉

His energy, experience and enthusiasm are exactly what we look for at AI for Non-Techies, and he's already a well-loved member of the team.

Welcome John!! 👋

And we've got MORE full-time employees joining in the next 2 weeks:

- SDR/Account Exec
- Commercial Director

And lots more new roles to come, keep your eyes out here and on the AI for Non-Techies page. 👀

PS I usually do a hand-drawn flipchart drawing for in-person meetings, but yesterday Alice Walton arrived first, and beat me to it with a fancypants AI-generated welcome graphic - see below.

Just building a course on how hyper-realistic AI photos are now and how you totally can’t tell it's AI anymore and

How I built a £1m AI training business in 3 years, 6 months 
(And the critical lessons I learnt along the way) 
 
🎓 Lesson 1: Trust your gut 
 
In late 2022, my copywriting agency was failing. It was my first business, and despite several fruitful years, I'd made a lot of rookie errors: wrong products, wrong people, bad financial habits. 
 
ChatGPT came out, and I could see it would finish us off.  
 
I could also see this AI thing was a MASSIVE opportunity.  
Everything in my gut told me to go all in. 
It was a massive gamble. 
But I went for it.

🎓 Lesson 2: As Hormozi says, “put so much effort in that it would be unreasonable not to succeed” 
 
I've never been afraid of good, hard graft. 
 
At this point, the only videos and guides out there were for techies, so I learnt by doing, not by listening to others. I spent 3-4 hours every single day (and I mean every day) using AI: teaching myself to prompt, building things, testing tools.
 
Even now (especially now!), so much of what people say online is absolute b*llocks. Every tool is "INSANE!", every feature is "GAME CHANGING!" - and very little is actually useful.  
 
Having that hands-on, real experience of an AI tool and how it works, where it breaks, how to get it to play ball, is woefully rare and thus, highly valuable. 
 
Most people can’t be arsed. Be arsed. 
 
🎓 Lesson 3: The people stuff is tough, get help
 
I’m Captain Enthusiastic, an irritatingly cup-half-full type. This means I think everyone is absolutely brilliant. So I don’t hire alone – I always bring in other perspectives.  
 
Sub-lessons here: 
 
1. Skills are trainable, culture isn’t  
2. Generalists are great at first, but you need specialists to scale 
3. Have long probation periods – people can pretend for 3 months, but you see them clearly by 6 
 
The best move I ever made was bringing Alice Walton in as Co-Founder. Her techie, analytical and operational skills complement my creative, strategic and innovative skills perfectly.  
 
🎓 Lesson 4 - Comfort inhibits growth
 
Stay comfy and you’ll stay in the same place.  
 
If you want to grow, you’ve got to run headfirst into those awkward, dreaded, bleurgh, want to go home moments.  
 
Sometimes, that thing you dreaded happening will actually happen. But it’s all critical learning, get back to it ASAP, and you’ll be a lot stronger than before. 
 
🎓 Lesson 5 - You can't cover it all 
 
AI is moving 10x faster than it was 3 years ago - with new (actually usable) features and tools being shipped weekly.  
 
Unless you have a team of researchers and trainers to help you, don't try to keep up with everything; it'll burn you out.  
 
(We’ve gone all in Copilot for this very reason.) 
 
===== 
 
I've got so much more to say, but I'm out of characters.
 
If you're looking to build an AI training/advisory business, join me in our 3-day online bootcamp in June (it’s only £72/$97): https://lnkd.in/e_Hvm6G9