AI Strategy Workshops
The 12-month plan, not the deck.
Half-day or full-day workshops with your leadership team. We map where AI compounds value in your business, prioritise the first 3-5 workflows, and write the implementation plan. Run by an AI-native operator who actually runs an SMB on Claude today.
Built by an operator who ships
Two formats
Half-day for focus. Full-day for alignment.
Half-day workshop
4 hours, on-site or online
Focused half-day with your leadership team. We map the AI surface area of your business, prioritise the first 3-5 workflows, and walk out with a 90-day plan.
Best for
- First serious conversation about AI inside the business
- Leadership alignment before committing to a full implementation
- Owners who want a clear plan before spending build budget
Most chosen
Full-day workshop
Full day, on-site preferred
Whole-day immersion with leadership and key team leads. Same outputs as the half-day plus a 12-month roadmap, governance principles and rollout sequencing across functions.
Best for
- Mid-sized SMBs with multiple functions to align
- Boards and leadership teams making AI a strategic priority
- Pre-implementation alignment when budget is significant
What you walk out with
Real deliverables. Not a slide pack.
AI surface map
Where AI compounds value in your specific business. Function by function, with a defensible ranking.
Prioritised workflow list
Top 5-10 workflows ranked by impact, effort and risk - so you know exactly where to start.
12-month roadmap
What gets installed when, who owns it, and what success looks like at each milestone.
Governance principles
Data handling, IP, model selection, audit logging - the principles your legal and IT teams will sign off on.
How it works
Discovery, pre-work, workshop, written plan.
01
Free 30-min discovery call
Tell us about the business, where AI is on the leadership agenda and who'll be in the room. We'll confirm format and outputs.
02
Pre-work and interviews
Short async interviews with 2-4 function leads in the week before the workshop. So we land in the room with context, not asking your team to explain themselves twice.
03
Workshop day
Run by an AI-native operator who runs an SMB on Claude today. Half-day or full-day, structured agenda, real outputs - not a generic strategy deck.
04
Written plan within 5 business days
Full written deliverable: surface map, prioritised workflows, 12-month roadmap, governance principles. Yours to act on, with us or without us.
FAQ
Common questions.
What's the price?+
Pricing depends on workshop format, location and team size. We give an honest fixed quote after a 30-minute discovery call - no public price list because the right format depends on your business.
Online or in person?+
Either. Half-day workshops work well online via Microsoft Teams. Full-day workshops are sharper in person - we travel anywhere in Australia for those.
Who should be in the room?+
The owner / CEO, and 3-6 function leads (operations, sales, marketing, finance, ops/IT, customer service - whichever apply). More than 8 in the room is too many for the working sessions to land.
Do you push us to hire you for the implementation?+
No. The deliverable is yours regardless. About half of workshop clients hire us for the implementation; the other half take the plan and run it themselves or with another team. We optimise for honest outputs, not implementation lock-in.
Is this just a generic AI deck?+
No. Every workshop is run from scratch around your business. We do interviews up front so the day is about your workflows, your stack and your team - not a recycled slide pack with your logo on it.
How does this fit with the other XLev services?+
Most large engagements start here. The workshop produces the plan; Claude Implementation, Custom Builds and Custom Automations are how the plan gets installed. You can do the workshop without committing to anything else, and you can hire us for implementation without doing the workshop.
Related reading
Operator notes on AI strategy for an SMB.
Where AI compounds value, who should own it, and what the team needs to know before the rollout starts.
AI Strategy · 8 min read
Hiring an AI lead: in-house, fractional, or agency?
Every serious SMB AI rollout needs a single accountable owner. Whether that's a full-time hire, a fractional CAIO, or an external agency depends on stage, budget and how strategic AI is to the business. Here's the honest decision tree.
Read article →
AI Strategy · 10 min read
Where AI compounds value in an SMB (and where it doesn't)
An honest map of the workflows AI actually moves the needle on inside a 5-200 staff Australian SMB - and the ones where the ROI is small enough that you can safely deprioritise them.
Read article →
Explainers · 8 min read
What is an LLM — and why an SMB owner should actually care
Plain-language explainer: what large language models are, what they do well, what they shouldn't touch, and the three places they create real operating leverage in a lower-middle-market business.
Read article →
Book a free 30-min discovery call
Get the plan first.
Most owners spend money on AI before they have a plan. We build the plan first, then implement what makes the cut - so the budget lands on the workflows that actually move the business.