The GAPP framework
Our proprietary framework helps teams connect a customer need to something AI could do.
AI strategy workshops
AI strategy built on your own business.
AI changes every few weeks, and it's hard for executives to keep up with what it can do now and to set a strategy for their business. I run AI strategy workshops for leadership teams with Sam Dix, my colleague and co-lead at the Cornell Tech Startup Studio. We start each workshop at the frontier, with the work AI can now take on and how it shifts the economics of your business. Much of that view comes from the founders we coach at the Studio.
Before each session, we select real problems from your business and build working prototypes on them. In the room, we lead the discussion so your team sees that ideas worth pursuing can be prototyped and tested quickly with AI. Your own people can build those tests, and we show leaders how to give them the time and authority to run them.
01 · Recent client
AI leadership offsite for a global advisory firm
A global advisory firm valued at $2.3 billion brought us in for its AI leadership offsite at Cornell Tech. Members of its executive board and senior leadership attended. We now work with the firm's business units to build and test the ideas that came out of that day.
02 · A two-session framework
A two-session framework
We build each workshop on a two-session framework: the AI frontier first, then AI applied to your business. We adjust both for each client, based on your team's challenges and priorities.
03 · Session 1
The AI frontier
In the first session, we give your leaders a current picture of AI, drawn from what founders at the Cornell Tech Startup Studio are building. We put that picture together for each client, so the examples follow your industry and the latest developments.
We look at what AI can take on today and where it still falls short. Then we turn to what that means for your strategy and how teams that build with AI every day organize their work.
A founder from the Cornell Tech Startup Studio can join us to walk through a product decision and the customer feedback behind it. Your leaders can ask how an AI-native company works and learn from the choices its team made.
04 · Session 2
Applying AI to your business
In the second session, your team applies AI to its own business.
Working prototypes
We build each prototype before the session on a problem we selected from your business, using public or synthetic data, and it runs live in the room. After each one runs, the group uses GAPP to discuss how it could change what your customers receive and what someone would need to check before relying on it.
Scenario workshop
Teams then work through scenarios drawn from your industry. Each team uses GAPP to identify a customer need and develop an idea, then shares it with the evidence it would need to decide whether to pursue it.
Questions a use case can raise
- Where could AI make a useful contribution?
- Which parts depend on the company's knowledge or data?
- How would people assess the quality of its work?
- Would the benefits justify the full cost, including review and corrections?
- What would the team need to understand before taking this further?
05 · Preparation and follow-up
Preparation and follow-up
Before the session
We start with your CEO and whoever leads AI to agree on the questions for the day. Then we study your business and build working prototypes on the problems we select. We can also write a short brief on recent AI developments for your leaders to read beforehand.
After the session
Within five business days, we send a written watchlist of the AI developments that matter to your business, along with the questions your team raised. We keep our recommendations separate from what participants said. Then we meet with your sponsor for an hour to agree on next steps.
06 · An AI strategy your team can act on
An AI strategy your team can act on
We want your leadership team to leave able to discuss AI with informed judgment and to agree on where it fits in the business. That means recognizing a promising use case and knowing what the company would need to learn before pursuing it.
07 · Workshop formats
Workshop formats
We set the length and depth of each workshop by who attends and what they want to explore. A workshop can fill a full day or a half-day block inside a larger offsite.
Leadership offsite
The executive team sets the direction for AI across the company and connects changes in the technology to the choices each leader faces.
Business-unit session
One division or function explores AI through its own work. We base the use cases on its processes and constraints, so the team can set AI priorities for its own work.
Board briefing
Directors look at AI through the questions they need management to answer. We bring relevant cases so the board can discuss investment and responsibility.
Use-case discussion
A team takes time to examine one possible use of AI. Together we look at the business need and the questions to answer before the company commits to it.
08 · Venue
Venue
We run workshops at your offices or at Cornell Tech's Verizon Executive Education Center on Roosevelt Island. The center has comfortable, well-equipped meeting rooms with views of the Manhattan skyline.
09 · Venture building
Venture building
After a workshop, we can take the strongest ideas into venture building with the method we use at the Cornell Tech Startup Studio. Each team identifies a customer with a problem worth paying to solve and tests the idea with that customer before building. We work with one business unit at a time, skunkworks-style, to build the first version and put it in front of customers.
How venture building works
10 · Booking
Booking
Email alberto@escarlate.com with a little about your team, the occasion and the questions you want to explore, and we'll shape the workshop from there. Sessions run in English or Portuguese.