eCornell Live Online Workshops

Artificial intelligence is both a tool and a disruption to creators of all kinds, whether in the creative industries or in software development. Can creators prevent models from training on their content? Do they have a remedy if that already occurred? What happens if a model produces commercial content that infringes a creator's copyrights? At the same time, many creators and developers are using AI to generate content, inventions, or code they would like to protect. Is “AI-assisted content” truly protectable as intellectual property? This Workshop will explore these questions and provide practical guidance.

Billions of dollars are being invested in AI for HR, transforming its function from simple automation to a complete reinvention of the "human-machine handshake." As AI becomes a foundational layer for organizational infrastructure, HR's role is shifting from administrative oversight to becoming the primary architect of work itself. Failing to adapt means more than just losing efficiency — it means losing your seat as a strategic advisor to the business. This workshop provides HR professionals with a high-level roadmap to navigate the future of the profession. We'll review mind-boggling investments and forecasts for 2026, debating which tasks will be eliminated, which will be enhanced, and what new "full-stack" roles are likely to emerge. We will bridge the gap between HR-specific tools and broader organizational shifts, exploring how AI adoption in other departments will redefine future HR mandates. Together, we'll move from "experimentation" to "orchestration," mapping how to lead workforce redesign and agentic governance. Participants leave with a strategic blueprint for their own career evolution and a clear vision of how to lead their organizations through the human-AI transition.

Most organizations rushing to implement AI run into the same problem: The technology isn't the hard part — getting your day-to-day work organized enough for automation to actually help is. The result? Wasted time and money on tools that never deliver. This highly interactive Workshop provides a clear, practical way to figure out which tasks in your organization are ready for AI right now and which ones need some cleanup first. We'll cut through the hype and help you make smarter decisions about where to start. Together, we'll learn the differences among robotic process automation (RPA), generative AI, and process AI as well as when to use each one. Through hands-on exercises, we'll practice breaking down real work tasks into step-by-step instructions that an AI system can actually follow. We'll also use a simple scoring tool to rank which tasks are the best candidates for automation so you leave with a concrete plan your team can act on right away. To prepare, participants should have general familiarity with frontier generative AI tools/Large Language Models (LLMs) such as: Anthropic's Claude, Open AI's ChatGPT, or Google's Gemini, Perplexity, or another AI tool of their choice. The faculty member will use Perplexity for demonstrations during the session, though participants are welcome to follow along using their preferred generative AI platform.

Most legal and business teams are already using AI for IP work. Few have a reliable process for knowing when to trust it. This Workshop gives senior in-house counsel, licensing leaders, brand executives, and their business partners a hands-on framework for applying AI across the full IP life cycle — with the critical judgment skills to use it responsibly. We'll work through guided exercises drawn from real practice situations: fair use analysis, copyright clearance, trademark searching and Nice class selection, licensing and royalty benchmarking, portfolio audits, and demand letter drafting. We'll compare prompts and outputs in small groups, practice detecting fabricated case citations and other hallucinations, and examine the strategic questions executives now need to ask of their legal teams, vendors, and AI tools. Participants leave with a working toolkit, prompts, checklists, risk matrices, and template letters, ready to deploy inside their organizations immediately. Participants should come prepared to use their preferred AI assistant, such as Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini, during the session.

Most professionals struggle to tell stories that genuinely move people to act — and AI tools, used without a strategy, can make that problem worse. This Workshop tackles that tension head on, showing when AI deepens the impact of your storytelling and when it quietly erodes the authenticity your audience needs to trust you. This Workshop will equip you with proven frameworks for human-centered narrative structure alongside practical AI prompting strategies designed specifically for professional communication. We'll explore how to structure compelling stories for any audience and how to strategically integrate AI into the writing process to attract attention, sustain engagement, and make messages more memorable. Through hands-on exercises, we'll apply these frameworks directly to real workplace scenarios: securing stakeholder buy-in, pitching ideas across organizational levels, and communicating through uncertainty. You'll leave with specific, ready-to-use AI prompts for transforming your storytelling, a repeatable narrative structure you can apply immediately, and the critical judgment to know when AI enhances your message — as well as when it's better to put it aside. Strategic storytelling is one of the highest-leverage professional skills, and this Workshop makes it actionable. To prepare, participants should have access to Anthropic's Claude or another AI tool of their choice. The faculty member will use Claude for demonstrations throughout the session, though participants are welcome to follow along using their preferred AI platform.

Performance reviews are often criticized for being time-consuming, subjective, and prone to recency bias. As one of the fastest-evolving tools in HR, AI offers a way to streamline feedback, yet many organizations remain hesitant. Without a clear understanding of how these technologies function and how they are perceived by the workforce, teams risk damaging the employee experience and eroding trust in the management process. This workshop provides working professionals with a strategic framework for navigating the novel landscape of AI-driven performance management. We'll review how various technologies work, identifying where they excel at synthesis and where they struggle with nuanced human context. We will analyze compelling research on manager and employee perceptions to ensure that AI integration strengthens, rather than weakens, the feedback loop, then explore the broader impact of these tools on objectivity and professional growth within organizations. We'll have the opportunity to test these applications firsthand, gaining a practical blueprint for improving review quality while maintaining the empathy required for effective talent development.

Traditional interviewing is often riddled with unconscious bias, inconsistent data, and manual inefficiencies that stall hiring. Most teams struggle to balance the speed of high-volume recruitment with the quality of candidate experience, leading to mismatched hires or lost talent. Without a structured approach to emerging tools, AI adoption in recruitment remains a scattered experiment rather than a strategic advantage. This Workshop provides working professionals with a research-backed framework for integrating AI into the interview life cycle. We'll move beyond the hype to review how various technologies work, identifying where specific applications excel and where they create friction. We‘ll analyze compelling research on AI-supported interviews to understand their measurable impact on candidate perception and hiring accuracy. Together, we'll explore practical ways to deploy these tools within specific organizational constraints. Participants leave with a clear roadmap for optimizing interview intelligence while maintaining the human touch essential for securing top-tier talent.

Sales teams are under pressure to deliver more with less, yet most AI adoption stalls at generic chatbot experiments that never impact the pipeline. When AI remains a "desk toy" rather than an integrated tool, it creates a gap between high-level hype and actual revenue results. This Workshop provides sales professionals with the technical perspective to turn LLMs into high-performance pipeline drivers. We will move beyond basic prompting to build usable, real-time sales tools. Together, we'll map and diagnose your specific sales process to identify where AI should replace, augment, or enable entirely new capabilities. We will bridge the gap between generic outreach and genuine connection by building a reusable lead-scoring guide and testing it against your actual prospects. Using your own LinkedIn connection data, we'll apply context-rich frameworks that transform automated output into personalized engagement. Participants leave with a structured sales process map, a functional lead-scoring prompt, and a refined outreach strategy grounded in their real professional network.

Getting an agent to run once is easy, but building one that engineering teams, security reviewers, and auditors can actually rely on is a very different craft. This Workshop helps you move beyond flashy demos to focus on the architecture, controls, and operating discipline required to make agentic workflows dependable in real enterprise settings. Using Claude Code as the development environment and the open-source project as a reference, we'll take a practical look at what a production-grade agent looks like under the hood. We'll explore explicit LangGraph state machines, small named nodes, and the essential plumbing that turns a prototype into a deployable system. We'll cover the design principles behind enterprise-ready agents, including structured atomic workflows and human approval gates for high-risk actions. From there, we'll move into the operational stack, examining the OWASP LLM Top 10 threat model and RAG architecture patterns. We'll conclude with a hands-on blueprint exercise to design a state graph, tool permissions, and monitoring approach—providing a build-ready plan engineering teams can execute immediately. To fully participate in the interactive components of this workshop, you will need to sign up for accounts at GitHub and at Claude Code (Pro or higher).

Most marketing teams are drowning in AI possibilities but starving for practical implementation. While everyone talks about AI agents transforming operations, few understand the underlying decision-making logic that drives meaningful business results. This creates a "black box" problem where marketing investments in agentic tools remain experimental, stay disconnected from core KPIs, and fail to deliver measurable ROI. This Workshop bridges the gap between AI experimentation and systematic deployment by providing marketing professionals with a transparent, hands-on look at agentic architecture. We'll move beyond surface-level AI discussions to audit your marketing organization using the proven Levers & Outcomes framework, identifying high-impact automation targets where current investment is disconnected from results. We'll demystify the "black box" by live-walking through a production-grade agent built with LangChain and LangGraph, revealing exactly how these systems categorize inputs, make routing decisions, and execute complex workflows. We'll then translate this technical understanding into practical application. You'll discover how to express sophisticated agentic logic using plain-language instructions, adapting and running your own versions through no-code tools like Claude Cowork or GPTs. This proves that enterprise-grade AI implementation doesn't require a computer science degree — just the right framework and instruction design. You'll leave with a deep understanding of agentic mechanics and a reusable no-code instruction file ready for immediate deployment in your marketing operations.

AI adoption is accelerating across sectors, yet many organizations lack a structured governance model to deploy these tools responsibly and at scale. Without clearly defined oversight and accountability, AI initiatives often become fragmented or duplicative, exposing institutions to significant legal, compliance, and reputational risks. When strategic alignment to enterprise objectives is missing, teams are left vulnerable to inconsistent execution and unforeseen policy gaps. This Workshop provides a practical operating framework for teams to design and implement a cohesive AI strategy. We'll utilize a Capability Maturity Model to assess current institutional readiness and identify critical governance gaps. Moving from theory to tactical application, we'll establish decision rights and draft a sample AI Steering Committee charter to ensure executive alignment. We'll also define a clear RACI model for AI initiatives, confirming that every team member understands their specific role in maintaining policy guardrails.  By the end of our session, we'll have moved beyond passive consumption to create a phased AI adoption roadmap. We won't just discuss foundational risks; we'll build the actual blueprint needed to lead our institutions through a safe, scalable AI transformation.
 

Job descriptions are the underappreciated building blocks of talent acquisition, yet most remain outdated, biased, and ineffective. In a world where candidates are now using AI to "game" the system and appear as perfect matches, traditional job posting processes fail to attract the right talent. Without a strategic approach to job description documents, teams struggle with poor candidate quality and disconnected hiring processes. This Workshop provides working professionals with a practical framework for using AI to reinvent the job description. We'll review how various technologies work and where they excel or struggle in creating high-performing talent advertisements. We'll analyze compelling research on candidate engagement to understand how seekers interact with posts and how they use AI themselves to bypass filters. Together, we'll explore the broader impact of AI-driven descriptions on an employer brand and attraction strategy. Participants leave with the opportunity to test these tools on their own organizational needs, gaining a clear blueprint for improving talent discovery through machine-legible and human-centric job design.

Unsure where to start with AI? Join us for this introductory 2-hour Workshop that will equip you with a foundational understanding of how to use AI and give you the confidence and clarity to get started. Designed for working professionals new to AI or uncertain where to begin, this Workshop provides you with firsthand experience using AI to address real workplace challenges, guided by AI expert and Cornell faculty Karan Girotra. We'll explore the capabilities and limitations of machine intelligence, examine how AI is changing work and organizations, and use actual AI tools to tackle a real problem from your work. Through guided experimentation, you'll build confidence using AI interfaces while developing a clearer perspective on the broader competitive and organizational shifts taking shape. By the end of the Workshop, you'll have foundational AI knowledge, practical experience, and greater confidence to continue experimenting and learning as these technologies evolve. Note: To participate in this Workshop, you will need to register for ChatGPT Plus or a Claude Pro account at an approximate cost of $20/month.

Vibe-code your own personal agent. There's a lot of hype around AI agents that answer emails, do research, organize tasks, and maybe even run parts of your life. But how do these agents actually work? Can you trust them? What happens to your data? And where do they actually help versus quietly create new problems? This Workshop cuts through the hype and helps you learn to build AI agents to truly scale your productivity. We'll explain what agents are, what works, what does not, what is safe, and what is not. We start by demystifying how LLMs operate so you can understand why they sometimes hallucinate, where “reasoning” breaks down, and why good results usually come from structure, not magic prompting. From there, we'll build a practical vocabulary for agentic systems: how they plan, how they use tools, how memory works, and why most consumer demos fall apart in real workflows. In the second half, we'll get hands-on with Claude's consumer tools and work through real examples like email triage and LinkedIn tasks. In breakout groups, we'll turn repetitive work into structured, reusable AI workflows that last beyond a single chat session, without writing a line of code. You do not need coding experience. To fully participate, you will need a Pro subscription from Claude, the Claude Chrome extension, and ideally the Claude desktop app. We will discuss other alternatives and free options but we'll build using those tools.

Most organizations are treating AI as a productivity tool, missing the fundamental shift happening right now. AI has evolved from generating text and images to deploying autonomous agents that plan, execute, and iterate for hours to complete expert-level work, demonstrating that machine intelligence already exists for sophisticated, economically meaningful tasks. This transformation promises inexpensive, widely accessible, and scalable intelligence that will usher in the era of Abundant Intelligence, reshaping business much like the internet, steam engine, and electricity before it. While a few greenfield organizations are realizing dramatic gains, AI transformation in established companies faces a harsh reality: It's bigger than leaders imagine and harder than they expect. This workshop equips teams to navigate the gap between AI's transformative potential and organizational reality. We will explore how machine intelligence will enable disruptive business models, redistribute economic power, and reorganize work itself — going far beyond individual productivity gains. More importantly, we'll develop the ambitious transformation vision, competitive strategy, and deliberate change management process your organization needs to succeed. We will examine real cases of AI transformation success and failure, then build frameworks for experimentation, organizational redesign, and strategic positioning as market power shifts around you. You'll leave with both the strategic perspective to envision your organization's AI future and the practical roadmap to start building it immediately.

AI is changing how high-stakes decisions get made, introducing faster cycles, higher complexity, and greater visibility into every choice leaders make. In this environment, relying on gut instinct or static playbooks is no longer enough. Strategic missteps happen when information is incomplete, assumptions go untested, or decisions aren't communicated in ways that build alignment and trust. This workshop helps technology leaders navigate these challenges by combining time-tested decision frameworks with practical AI applications that raise the quality, speed, and transparency of decisions. We'll work together to build a Living AI Context Engine that organizes and compounds project knowledge so every decision draws from a rich, continuously updated foundation rather than fragmented inputs. We'll apply AI to pressure-test critical choices, challenge hidden assumptions, and reduce decision fatigue when the path forward isn't clear. We'll also show how AI can translate complex decisions into clear, trust-building narratives that secure stakeholder alignment and keep teams moving decisively. Through interactive exercises and live case examples, we'll integrate AI into the decision-making process — not as a replacement for leadership judgment but as a force multiplier that sharpens it.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how projects are planned, executed, and delivered. Project managers who can use AI tools well have a true advantage, freeing up time to focus on the work where they provide the most value: making difficult judgment calls, assessing risk, and navigating challenging conversations. This three-hour, hands-on online Workshop focuses on the practice of project management. Through live demonstrations and guided exercises, participants will apply AI to real project management work: drafting charters and communication plans, automating reports, identifying and analyzing risks, summarizing meeting notes and status reports, and sharpening stakeholder communications. Along the way, we'll examine the fundamentals of effective prompting, strategies for critically evaluating AI output, and the ethical and data privacy questions every PM should settle before bringing AI into their workflow. Participants leave with a personal toolkit of prompts and techniques they can put to work the next day.