AI training for companies & universities

Someone on your team has already figured out something that works.
It never leaves their laptop.

Nearly everyone is using AI now, quietly and on their own. The hard part was never getting people to try it — it's that what works has no way to travel. Nobody's ever told your people what's actually in it for them. We build the conditions for good practice to spread and get recognized, whether it's your business or your team.

"Six months ago, I didn't know where to start with AI... now we're using AI tools across our financial systems I didn't even know existed." — VP of Financial Systems, international bank

Which one's you? I lead a business or team → I'm in higher ed →
Book a discovery call See programs & pricing
On-site or remote, built on your stack & policies
The visibility gap
What leadership can see, versus what's actually happening.
Companies with official AI subscriptions 40% the part nobody can see Organizations where staff use personal AI for work 90%+ MIT Media Lab, Project NANDA — The GenAI Divide, 2025
Engagements to date Healthcare Specialty chemicals International banking Higher education

What we keep running into

Adoption is no longer the hard part. The people doing the adopting are.

The tools are already in the building, sanctioned or not — over 90% of organizations have staff using personal AI tools for work, while only 40% ever bought an official subscription.2 That gap isn't recklessness. It's what happens when nobody builds a route for one person's skill to become everyone's, and nobody answers the question every employee actually has: what's in this for me?

The reality you're facing
What we actually do about it

Nobody's told your team what's in it for them

Managers increasingly credit the tool instead of the person who used it well. Employees train themselves on their own time, then worry the payoff is more work for the same paycheck — not a raise. 45% of people keep their AI use to themselves as a result, a third specifically because they worry it reads as cutting corners.1 That's a rational read of the incentives, not a character flaw.

We make adoption something your team actually wants

This is change management, not tool training — the part almost every "AI for business" course skips, because it takes real organizational experience, not just tool fluency. We name the incentive problem directly and fix the structure around it, so showing your work costs nothing and using AI well gets noticed, not quietly penalized.

Restrictions don't hold, they just add guilt

Two thirds of office professionals have used AI tools they believed policy prohibited, and 88% have put work information into public tools — including customer data and confidential documents.3 77% say restrictions on AI use hold their careers back.3 People aren't being reckless; they're doing their jobs with what's in reach.

We build the sanctioned path people actually prefer

We make the approved workflow genuinely better than the personal-account workaround — on your policies, in your tools. That's the only version of "compliant AI use" that survives an actual deadline.

The same gap shows up in the classroom, not just the office. 94% of higher-ed faculty and staff used AI tools in the past six months — 38% daily — while only 11% were ever required to.5 Just 29% of students believe their instructors are equipped to guide AI use, despite 64% of faculty having had AI literacy training — proof that generic training doesn't land, which is exactly the gap we're built for.6 On the cost side, each piece of AI "workslop" a colleague sends costs about two hours of rework, roughly $186 per employee per month.4 MIT's researchers found the 95% of enterprise AI pilots showing no measurable return don't fail on model quality — they call it a learning gap: systems and people that never improve from use.2 We read that as good news. A learning gap responds to teaching, and teaching is the thing we actually know how to do.

Not ready for a call yet?

Start with the roadmap, not a sales pitch

The hardest part of learning AI right now isn't finding information — it's knowing where to start and what to ignore. We'll send you the short, no-fluff roadmap we give our own students: which resources are actually worth your time, and in what order.

One email. No pitch. Unsubscribe anytime.

2023
started teaching and building with these tools
300+ hrs
saved annually by one client's two automation projects — their estimate
14 yrs
combined industry experience, before academia
30 days
of follow-up support after every engagement

Who it's for

Two buyers, two very different rollouts

A founder and a college faculty senate need the same skills and completely different delivery. We don't pretend otherwise.

Companies

Founders & team leaders

Whether you're running the business or leading a team inside one, the same two gaps show up: real strategic and competitive research nobody has time to do properly, and getting a team to actually use whatever you roll out instead of quietly ignoring it. We work both sides — AI-assisted research and planning, plus the change management that makes adoption stick.

  • AI-assisted strategic and competitive research — hours, not an outsourced report weeks later
  • Change management for AI adoption, so a new tool doesn't just sit unused
  • Prompt engineering and workflow design inside the tools you already have
  • Plain judgment on what's actually worth automating, and what isn't
Business leader programs
Higher education

Deans, provosts & faculty development

Taught by a working business-school professor, so the room doesn't spend the first hour deciding whether the trainer understands academic work. She does — she does it every week.

  • Faculty AI literacy that survives a real teaching load
  • Assignment and assessment redesign for an AI-present classroom
  • Staff and administrative workflow training
  • Guidance grounded in your institution's own AI and academic-integrity policy
Higher-ed programs

Our method

Calm first. Capability second. That order is the reason it sticks.

When half the room is keeping its real workflow private, no curriculum reaches it — people nod through the session and go back to what they were already doing. So we lower the temperature first, then build the skills. That order is the whole reason the skills stick.

Chill
Lower the temperature

We start with the human side of adoption — the part most training skips entirely.

  • Replace AI anxiety with a clear, accurate mental model of what these tools are and aren't
  • Design the mental load out of daily work: fewer open loops, fewer tabs, fewer throwaway drafts
  • Make it safe to be a beginner — teams learn faster when nobody's performing competence
Shine
Build real capability

Then we build durable, hands-on skill — in your tools, on your work, with your data rules.

  • Copilot mastery inside the apps your team already lives in every day
  • Agentic workflows that hand routine work to AI, with human judgment kept in the loop
  • The discernment to know when AI genuinely helps and when it just adds review burden

Straight about our capacity

Josh runs Chill & Shine year-round. Yaa joins full time every summer.

Dr. Josh Maurer leads the consulting practice full time — he still teaches part time, which keeps the training honest about how people actually learn. Dr. Yaa is full-time faculty at Winona State University, so during the academic year her time belongs to her students; in summer she's on client engagements full time. You get a partner who answers in days, not semesters — and a second expert when the work calls for both.

Summer slots with both of us are limited, and they go first to the conversations that start early. If your timing is urgent, ask anyway — we'll tell you honestly what's possible.

Currently booking
Year-round
Workshops & advisory, led by Josh
Summer 2027
Cohorts & faculty programs, with both of us
Discovery calls happen year-round — earlier conversations get first choice of dates.
Start the conversation

Programs & pricing

Three engagement shapes

Every engagement is tailored to your stack, your policies, and your people — but it starts from one of these three.

WorkshopHalf day · up to 30

Team Foundations

For teams starting out, or restarting after a stalled rollout

A hands-on reset: what AI is actually good for, Copilot fundamentals in your own apps, and every person leaving with one working routine they'll keep.

  • Pre-session stack & policy review
  • 4 hours live, on-site or remote
  • Team quick-reference playbook
  • 30 days of follow-up support
Call for estimate
flat rate, scoped per session
Request the agenda
Most requested
Cohort6 weeks · up to 25

Calm AI Operator

For intact teams ready to embed AI in real work

Weekly live sessions plus practice on actual tasks: prompt craft, agentic workflows, review habits, and a team playbook your people write as they go.

  • Baseline usage & workflow audit
  • 6 × 90-minute live sessions
  • Between-session practice on live work
  • Team-authored AI playbook
  • 90-day usage report for leadership
Call for estimate
scoped per cohort
Request the syllabus
ProgramCustom · department-wide

Faculty & Leadership

For universities and people leaders

AI literacy for faculty, assignment and course redesign, and manager enablement — how to lead a group where humans and AI share the work.

  • Department or campus-wide delivery
  • Course & assessment redesign clinics
  • Policy-aligned guidance for your institution
  • Train-the-trainer option
Call for estimate
scoped per department
Request a proposal

How an engagement runs

Simple on purpose

01 — Discovery

30-minute call

Your goals, your tools, and where your team actually is — not where the org chart says they are.

02 — Design

Tailored curriculum

We adapt to your stack (Microsoft 365, Google, or mixed), your policies, and the work your people really do.

03 — Delivery

Live sessions

On-site or remote, hands on live work. No recorded-lecture library nobody finishes.

04 — Follow-through

30 days + readout

Follow-up support while habits settle, then a short report on what your team actually used — ready to hand to leadership.

Results

What clients say afterward

These engagements were delivered under our Brain & Bot name. In 2026 we moved all paid work to Chill & Shine so Brain & Bot could stay entirely free — same team, same people, one fewer brand to keep track of. The quotes are unedited, which is why the old name is still in them.

“Brain & Bot delivered immediate ROI — their two automation projects save us 300+ hours annually. That's real money back in our budget. Their practical approach to AI integration has transformed how our entire department operates.”

Operations Manager
Healthcare institution

“We were drowning in data with no actionable insights. Brain & Bot changed that in weeks, not months. Their AI frameworks turned our data challenges into competitive advantages — and they actually work in the real world.”

Principal Scientist
Specialty chemical company

“Six months ago, I didn't know where to start with AI. Brain & Bot's framework approach made adoption simple and practical. Now we're using AI tools across our financial systems that I didn't even know existed — with measurable efficiency gains.”

VP of Financial Systems
International bank

Client organizations are unnamed at their request; titles and sectors are accurate as given. The 300-hour figure is the client's own estimate of time returned, not a measurement we ran.

Who you'll work with

Two practitioners who do this work, not just teach it

Both of us spent years inside real organizations before the classroom — accounting firms and a Fortune 500 AI rollout on one side, global banks and The World Bank on the other.

Dr. Josh Maurer, co-founder of Chill & Shine

Dr. Josh Maurer

Co-founder · Strategy & ROI
Runs engagements year-round

Josh runs Chill & Shine full time and is usually the first person you'll talk to. He started as a public accountant at Wipfli and Clifton Gunderson — audit, financial statements, internal controls — then earned his PhD in strategic management and entrepreneurship.

He has consulted for a Fortune 500 company on AI implementation, presenting directly to its top management team, and his peer-reviewed research on generative AI and entrepreneurship appears in the Journal of Business Research, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, and the Journal of Small Business Management. He still teaches part time.

He's also a certified flight instructor — good training for staying calm when the checklist gets long.

PhD, Strategy & Entrepreneurship Fortune 500 AI implementation Wipfli LLP Journal of Business Research Certified flight instructor
Dr. Yaa Benyawarath, co-founder of Chill & Shine

Dr. Yaa Benyawarath

Co-founder · Curriculum & AI training
Leads summer programs

Dr. Yaa is full-time faculty in Management Information Systems at Winona State University, teaching AI, analytics, and information systems — and building with these tools daily, not just for the slides.

Before the classroom she spent a decade in industry: banking systems at IBM and Standard Chartered Bank, Six Sigma process improvement at GE Capital, and ICT-policy consulting for The World Bank. Her peer-reviewed research on generative AI is what the curriculum is built on, not a slide deck's best guess.

She created Brain & Bot, a free library of 250+ educational games and lessons — the same educator's discipline she brings to corporate and faculty work: no hype, no jargon, nobody left behind.

MIT Sloan — AI & Business Strategy Six Sigma The World Bank IBM GE Capital Standard Chartered Bank

More about the team

The Chill & Shine family

One brand, three doors

Start free, train your team, or bring us in at the strategy level. Same people, three different jobs.

brainandbot.ai
Start free

Free courses, games, and guides for AI literacy. Send your team here today — no signup pitch, just learning.
chillandshine.ai
You are here — team training

Paid B2B programs that take teams from AI-anxious to AI-capable: workshops, cohorts, and faculty tracks.

chillandshine.com
Coming soon

Contemplative practice for clearer decision-making under pressure — the same territory a lot of high performers have quietly drawn from for decades.

Next step

Find out if training is even the answer

Tell us about your team and your rollout. We'll tell you honestly whether training will move the needle — and which shape fits.

Book a discovery call

Sources cited on this page

  1. Slingshot Digital Work Trends Report, survey conducted by Dynata, January 2026 (n=500 US employees). Announcement
  2. MIT Media Lab, Project NANDA, The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025, July 2025.
  3. PagerDuty, Shadow AI in the Workplace, survey conducted by Wakefield Research, 2026 (n=1,250 office professionals at organizations with $500M+ revenue, across the US, UK, Australia and Japan). Report
  4. Kate Niederhoffer, Gabriella Rosen Kellerman et al., “AI-Generated ‘Workslop’ Is Destroying Productivity,” Harvard Business Review, September 2025 — research by BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab (n=1,150 US desk workers). Article
  5. EDUCAUSE, The Impact of AI on Work in Higher Education, 2026. Report
  6. Digital Education Council, AI in Higher Education Global Survey 2026 (n=45,398 students and faculty across 35 countries). Report