AI at Work: Sessions 1 and 2

AI at Work Session 1: A Practical Approach for Professionals

This session provides a practical introduction to generative AI tools for professionals. Participants will explore how AI can enhance everyday workflows. Topics covered will include:

  • using AI as a thought partner to generate ideas, explore different angles, and overcome creative blocks;
  • accelerating your research process by searching the web for information and summarizing it to answer questions and surface relevant insights;
  • drafting documents, refining prose, adjusting tone, and polishing content for different audiences;
  • building presentations, creating visuals, and designing infographics that communicate complex information clearly; 
  • understanding the basics of how AI can help analyze data and generate summaries that support better decision-making; and
  • boundaries of AI capabilities and key data privacy and security concerns that every organization should consider. 

AI at Work Session 2: Smarter Workflows and Better Decisions 

Designed for those who completed AI at Work Session 1.

Building on the first AI at Work session, this session explores how professionals can integrate generative AI into their daily workflows to increase productivity, improve decision-making, and scale their impact. The session focuses on two practical capabilities.

  1. Make AI a consistent part of everyday work. Explore how generative AI can automate repetitive tasks, streamline complex processes, and expand individual output. Participants will learn how to design reusable, semi-automated workflows using Agent Skills, create dedicated AI workspaces tailored to specific projects, and connect AI directly to external tools. The session will also briefly introduce AI agents and multi-agent systems that allow AI to coordinate complex, multi-step processes. 
  2. Use AI to write and execute simple code, particularly for data analysis and visualization. This capability allows professionals to perform sophisticated analysis even without prior programming experience. This session will demonstrate how AI can generate scripts, analyze datasets, create visualizations, and support exploratory analysis, enabling participants to answer complex questions more quickly and independently.

Facilitator

M. Saif Mehkari is a Professor of Economics at the University of Richmond and co-creator of SpiderAI, the university's primary platform for delivering AI tools and large language models to the campus community. Saif brings experience in AI education through his work designing and leading several AI workshops and faculty learning communities at UR. He is also launching a new Generative AI course for Economics and Business students in Spring 2026, bringing practical AI applications directly into the business curriculum.  Saif holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from The Ohio State University and a B.A. (with majors in Economics, Computer Science, and Mathematics) from Ohio Wesleyan University. He specializes in macroeconomics where he uses computational methods to solve models. His research has been published in top journals including Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Economic Theory, the European Economics Review, and Review of Economic Dynamics.

Program Details 

AI at Work Session 1: Monday, April 27, 2026, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.

AI at Work Session 2: Tuesday, May 12, 2026, 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Registration Fee

AI at Work Session 1 - $300

AI at Work Session 1 and 2 - $550 (if you register for both sessions at the same time)

Participants can receive .30 CEUs upon completion of one session. .60 CEUs for both.

*This program is not eligible for tuition remission for UR employees.

Registration Form

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