Most AI training is aimed at the person doing the task. Managers get left out, and that's where adoption stalls. If the person running the team doesn't know what good AI-assisted work looks like, nobody else will either.

I've spent 23 years in marketing. I built, scaled and sold a digital marketing agency, so I've managed teams through every new tool that promised to change everything. AI is the first one that does, and it changes the manager's job more than anyone's.

What changes in a manager's week

Your team's first drafts get faster, so your review becomes the bottleneck. Meeting notes, reports, client emails and briefs all arrive sooner and in bigger volume. The skill that matters now isn't writing them. It's judging them quickly and knowing which ones need a human rewrite.

• Delegating to AI: deciding which repeat tasks your team hands to AI and which stay human.
• Reviewing AI output: a short checklist so you catch made-up facts before a client does.
• Setting team rules: what goes into an AI tool, what never does, and who signs off.
• Coaching the sceptics: helping the people who tried it once and gave up.
• Reporting upwards: showing leadership what changed, in hours saved and work shipped.

The legal line managers need to know

Here's the part almost nobody mentions in a managers' course. The European Commission's AI Act Service Desk publishes Annex III of the EU AI Act, and point 4 lists AI used in employment as high-risk. That includes AI used to analyse and filter job applications, to allocate tasks based on individual behaviour or personal traits, and to monitor and evaluate the performance and behaviour of staff.

So using ChatGPT to tidy up your own meeting notes is one thing. Feeding it your team's messages and asking who's underperforming is a very different thing. If you manage people in the EU, or for an EU business, keep AI away from judging individuals unless your legal team has signed it off. I cover where that line sits in every session.

How a session for managers runs

I keep it practical. Your managers have a team waiting for them.

1. Each manager lists the tasks their team repeats every week.
2. We pick the ones where AI saves the most time with the least risk.
3. We build the prompts and checks together, live, on real examples.
4. We write the team rules in plain English, so nobody has to guess.
5. Each manager leaves with a short plan to roll it out to their own team.

Who this suits

It suits team leads, department heads and owner-managers in marketing, sales, operations and service businesses. It suits managers whose teams already use ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini or Claude without much guidance, and managers whose teams haven't started and are waiting to be told it's allowed.

It isn't a technical course. If you can use email, you can do this. Sessions run over video and in English, for teams in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and beyond.

Training managers and their teams together

Some businesses train managers first and the team second, so the managers can lead it. Others train everyone at once. Both work. If you'd like the team side of it, my AI training for employees follows the same method, and the wider options are on my work with me page.

Mistakes I see managers make with AI

The first is banning it quietly. People keep using AI on their phones anyway, just without any rules, which is the worst of both worlds. The second is the opposite: buying licences for everyone, sending a link and calling it a rollout. A month later a handful of people use it daily and the rest have forgotten the login.

The third is judging AI work by how polished it looks. AI writes confidently even when it's wrong, so a tidy report can hide a made-up figure. Managers need a habit of checking the facts, names and numbers in anything that leaves the team, and they need to make that check normal rather than a sign of distrust.

The fourth is forgetting the people side. Some of your team will worry that AI is coming for their job. Say plainly what you're using it for and what you're not, and show them the hours it gives back. If you need a starting point for the rules themselves, my guide to an AI policy for small business teams covers the basics in plain English.

My plain advice for managers starting with AI

Start with your own work before you change anyone else's. Use AI on your own reports and emails for a fortnight, so you know what it gets wrong. Then pick one team task, agree the checks, and measure the hours it saves. I'm ruthless about results: if you can't measure it, don't roll it out.

And keep AI away from judging people. Use it to help your team do the work, not to score them on it.

Frequently asked questions

Who offers AI training for managers?

Lilach Bullock, a British AI trainer and AI implementation consultant with 23 years in marketing, runs practical AI for managers sessions over video for team leads and department heads.

What should managers learn about AI first?

How to delegate repeat tasks to AI, how to check what comes back for errors, and how to write simple team rules on what goes into AI tools and who signs off the result.

Can managers use AI to monitor staff performance?

Be careful. Annex III of the EU AI Act lists AI used to monitor and evaluate the performance and behaviour of workers as high-risk, so get legal sign-off before using AI that way.

Do managers need technical skills for AI training?

No. The sessions are built on everyday work like emails, reports and meeting notes. If you can use email, you can follow it.

Is AI training for managers different from team training?

Yes. Team training is about doing tasks with AI. Manager training is about choosing which tasks to hand over, reviewing the output and setting the rules.