AI for Business Professionals
Learn how to put AI to work in daily business operations. In this hands-on program, participants start with ChatGPT and Claude for everyday productivity, then go further with Codex to direct AI in building real business tools — a calculator, automated reports, an invoice follow-up system, a pricing model, a live dashboard, and a simple business website — all without writing code by hand. Several of these builds map directly onto accounting and finance work, from automated sales and invoice reporting to pricing and quotation models. The course continues with Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Gamma.
This is a business productivity course, not a software engineering course. No coding background is needed: every hands-on build is directed through plain-language prompts, so you focus on the business result while AI handles the technical work. The goal is to help participants work faster, automate repetitive tasks, and make better use of business information.
Duration: 24 hours (approx.)
Teaching Methodology: Hands on
Course Schedule: Schedule
Fees: $450
Course Mode: Blended – Face-to-face or online via Zoom
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OVERVIEW
This hands-on course teaches business professionals how to use today's leading AI assistants, and Codex, to work faster and automate real business tasks. Participants begin with ChatGPT and Claude for everyday productivity — writing emails and reports, preparing presentations, and summarizing meetings — then move into eight guided Codex builds: a business calculator, an automated sales report, an invoice follow-up system, a pricing and quotation model, a scheduled business task, an interactive revenue dashboard, a business website, and a packaged toolkit bringing every project together. For accounting and finance professionals in particular, the sales reporting, invoice follow-up, and pricing/quotation builds translate directly into day-to-day tasks like revenue tracking, receivables management, and quote preparation.
The course continues with Claude beyond chat, AI-assisted Excel and Power BI, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Gamma — all directly useful for financial spreadsheet work and reporting. Throughout, the focus stays practical: choosing the right tool for the task, writing effective prompts, verifying AI output, and building things you can actually use at work.
AUDIENCE
Business owners, managers, entrepreneurs, marketers, accountants, HR professionals, sales teams, customer support teams, administrative staff, consultants, trainers, and office employees who regularly prepare emails, reports, presentations, spreadsheets, meeting notes, proposals, or business documents.
PREREQUISITES
Basic computer knowledge is sufficient. No prior experience in AI, coding, or programming is required — Codex writes and runs the code, and you direct it with plain-language instructions.
REALISTIC COURSE OBJECTIVES
This course is designed to help participants become confident, hands-on AI users for everyday business work. The practical objective is to reduce time spent on repetitive writing, summarizing, reporting, and manual tasks, while giving participants real, working tools they build themselves with AI's help — from faster documents and reports to automated calculators, dashboards, and websites.
WHAT PARTICIPANTS WILL CREATE
- Professional business emails and replies
- Management reports and executive summaries
- A working business calculator, built with Codex
- An automated sales report and an interactive revenue dashboard
- An automated invoice follow-up system
- A pricing and quotation model
- A routine task that runs automatically on a schedule
- A simple business website
- Business presentations and pitch decks
- Reusable prompt templates for daily office work
EXPECTED RESULTS
Participants leave the course with practical AI workflows and working tools they can apply immediately in their job — from faster writing and reporting to automated processes built during the Codex lessons. The amount of time saved depends on the participant's role, digital skills, and how often they work with documents, reports, emails, meetings, presentations, and data.
AI TOOLS USED IN THIS COURSE
The course centers on six core tools — ChatGPT, Claude, Codex, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Gamma — used alongside Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, and a selection of department-specific business tools.
AI TOOLS BY BUSINESS FUNCTION
Click a category below to explore AI tools relevant to each business function. The listings are a reference guide — they help you discover the AI landscape for your field. Hands-on training in this course focuses on the six core tools listed above.
AI Tools
Core AI Assistants
General-purpose AI assistant for writing, brainstorming, summarizing, and business communication.
AI coding agent that builds calculators, reports, dashboards, and websites from plain-language prompts — no manual coding required.
Google's AI assistant for Gmail, Google Workspace, long-context analysis, and research.
HR
Accounting and Finance
Analyzes financial spreadsheets, creates formulas, charts, summaries, and financial insights.
Creates financial summaries, budget templates, report narratives, and accounting explanations.
Accounting platform for invoicing, bookkeeping, expense tracking, and financial workflows.
Customer Support
Reporting and Business Intelligence
Marketing
Sales and Business Development
Project Management and Operations
Summarizes meetings, drafts updates, and supports project communication across Microsoft tools.
Procurement and Supply Chain
Analyzes inventory sheets, supplier reports, procurement emails, and operational summaries.
Download Exercise Files
Download the first set of hands-on exercise files used throughout the course.
COURSE CONTENTS: AI FOR BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS
Part I — AI Productivity Foundations
Module 1 — AI in Modern Business
- How generative AI differs from traditional software and automation
- Strengths and limitations of AI assistants in business work
- Comparing ChatGPT, Claude, Codex, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, and Gamma
- Choosing the right tool for writing, analysis, automation, presentations, and research
- Recognizing tasks that require human judgment, approval, or specialist review
- Hands-on: compare outputs from several AI assistants for the same business request
Module 2 — Prompt Engineering for Business Workflows
- Defining the outcome, audience, context, constraints, and required format
- Role-based, example-based, and multi-step prompting
- Turning vague business requests into clear specifications
- Using source documents and business rules without asking AI to invent missing facts
- Iterating, reviewing, and improving prompts for accuracy and consistency
- Building reusable prompt templates for departments and recurring tasks
- Hands-on: create prompt templates for emails, reports, meetings, analysis, and proposals
Module 3 — ChatGPT and Claude for Everyday Productivity
- Drafting professional emails, replies, announcements, and follow-up messages
- Adjusting tone, clarity, length, and level of formality
- Summarizing long documents, correspondence, and meeting transcripts
- Extracting decisions, responsibilities, deadlines, risks, and action items
- Brainstorming business ideas while separating suggestions from verified facts
- Translating and adapting communication for different audiences
- Hands-on: prepare an executive summary and an action plan from supplied material
Module 4 — Reports, Documents, Meetings, and Presentations
- Creating report structures, proposals, SOPs, policies, and management summaries
- Preparing meeting agendas, minutes, decisions, and follow-up plans
- Converting notes and source material into presentation outlines
- Improving document structure without changing approved facts or figures
- Checking consistency between source data, narrative, conclusions, and recommendations
- Hands-on: produce a short management report and presentation brief
Part II — Building Real Business Solutions with Codex
Codex Lesson 01 — Build a Business Calculator with Codex in VS Code
- Set up Visual Studio Code, open the correct project folder, and access Codex
- Direct Codex with plain-language requirements instead of writing code manually
- Create a Python calculator and add controlled user input
- Build a simple Tkinter graphical interface
- Add profit, margin, markup, target price, discount, VAT, and break-even calculations
- Validate numbers, prevent invalid input, and display understandable messages
- Test business formulas against manual calculations and known expected results
- Assignment: extend the calculator with an approved business function and verification table
Codex Lesson 02 — Build an Automated Sales Report with Codex, Python, and Excel
- Inspect the supplied CSV file before changing or processing it
- Identify columns, missing values, duplicates, invalid rows, and business assumptions
- Clean and validate sales data while preserving the source file
- Calculate total sales and prepare product, customer, regional, and daily summaries
- Compare results with targets and flag exceptions or warnings
- Export a formatted Excel workbook with summaries, charts, and dashboard elements
- Follow the workflow: Inspect → Clean → Calculate → Summarize → Export → Verify
- Assignment: add an approved analysis while maintaining control totals
Codex Lesson 03 — Build an Automated Invoice Follow-Up System with Codex
- Read and validate invoice records, dates, amounts, payments, and customer fields
- Calculate outstanding balance, overdue days, and payment status
- Classify invoices by follow-up priority and aging category
- Generate professional reminder drafts without sending email automatically
- Create Excel sheets for invoice detail, aging, priorities, reminders, and management summaries
- Add warnings, control totals, charts, and dashboard indicators
- Review messages for accuracy, tone, privacy, and required human approval
- Workflow: Read → Validate → Calculate → Classify → Draft → Export → Review
Codex Lesson 04 — Build a Pricing and Quotation Model with Codex and Excel
- Prepare product master data and an assumptions table in Excel
- Direct Codex to inspect the workbook before extending it
- Apply markup, margin, discount, VAT, delivery, cost, price, and profit rules correctly
- Create Products, Quotation, Pricing Analysis, Assumptions, and Validation Tests sheets
- Use structured tables, formulas, formatting, validation, and protected calculation areas
- Test edge cases and verify formulas against known manual examples
- Document assumptions so the quotation can be audited and maintained
- Principle: the workbook is evidence, the prompt is the specification, and the student verifies the result
Codex Lesson 05 — Schedule Repetitive Business Tasks with Codex and Windows Task Scheduler
- Identify repetitive tasks suitable for scheduling and tasks that still require approval
- Convert the Lesson 02 sales report into a monitored unattended workflow
- Create dated outputs, Python logs, batch-file logs, and understandable status messages
- Add duplicate-run protection without overwriting previous reports
- Create and test a safe batch file before scheduling it
- Configure Windows Task Scheduler and verify system, process, and business success
- Handle missing files, environment problems, late input, and other failures safely
- Document the task owner, schedule, verification routine, recovery steps, and escalation path
Codex Lesson 06 — Build an Interactive Revenue Performance Dashboard
- Create a controlled project with transaction data, targets, output, application, and requirements files
- Inspect rows, dates, values, entities, join keys, missing data, duplicates, and assumptions
- Plan before coding and preserve all source data
- Build the dashboard using Python, pandas, Streamlit, and Plotly
- Add filters for date, sales representative, region, product line, and reporting period
- Create KPI cards for revenue, target, variance, target attainment, and growth
- Analyze monthly and yearly growth together with regional, product, and representative performance
- Verify joins, aggregates, filters, control totals, chart labels, and downloadable output
Codex Lesson 07 — Build and Refine a Business Website with Codex
- Define the audience, business goal, approved content, required pages, and contact actions
- Separate verified business information from draft copy and unsupported claims
- Direct Codex to create a responsive website from a clear specification
- Review structure, navigation, accessibility, mobile behavior, images, forms, and calls to action
- Refine one controlled area at a time without breaking working features
- Test links, layout, contact information, spelling, loading, and browser behavior
- Prepare the site for safe publishing and document future maintenance
- Case project: create a complete responsive business website using approved source material
Codex Lesson 08 — Organize and Package a Business Operations Toolkit
- Bring selected outputs from Lessons 01–07 into one organized business project
- Separate source data, scripts, applications, reports, outputs, logs, and documentation
- Use focused Codex threads for separate tasks while preserving project context
- Create concise AGENTS.md project rules for scope, safety, testing, and documentation
- Inventory files, explain dependencies, and prevent uncontrolled multi-file changes
- Create test and evidence registers, known-risk notes, release checks, and recovery guidance
- Prepare a README, project-status report, handover document, and maintenance instructions
- Review the complete toolkit for accuracy, usability, security, and business ownership
Part III — AI Across Office and Presentation Workflows
Module 13 — Claude Beyond Chat
- Working with long documents and multiple source files
- Extracting requirements, comparisons, risks, and inconsistencies
- Creating structured reports, policies, and reusable artifacts
- Maintaining a clear boundary between source evidence and AI interpretation
- Hands-on: analyze a long business document and produce an evidence-based brief
Module 14 — AI-Assisted Excel and Power BI
- Preparing clean, structured spreadsheet data for AI-assisted analysis
- Explaining formulas, identifying errors, and developing calculation logic
- Summarizing trends, variances, performance, and exceptions
- Defining KPIs and turning analysis into management-ready narratives
- Using Power BI concepts for dashboards, filters, charts, and reporting
- Checking AI-generated analysis against spreadsheet totals and business rules
Module 15 — Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365
- Drafting and revising documents in Word
- Analyzing and explaining spreadsheet information in Excel
- Creating presentation structures in PowerPoint
- Drafting and summarizing communication in Outlook and Teams
- Understanding access, permissions, source quality, and organizational controls
Module 16 — Google Gemini and Google Workspace
- Using Gemini for research, drafting, comparison, and multimodal analysis
- Supporting workflows in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive
- Working with long context and multiple business sources
- Comparing Gemini results with ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot
- Verifying sources, numbers, dates, and recommendations before business use
Module 17 — Gamma for Business Presentations
- Turning a business objective and approved outline into a presentation
- Organizing narrative flow, sections, summaries, and calls to action
- Applying a consistent visual theme and appropriate level of detail
- Reviewing facts, charts, branding, images, and speaker requirements
- Exporting, sharing, and refining the final deck
- Hands-on: create a management or client presentation from verified source material
LEARNING OUTCOMES
After completing this course, participants will be able to:
- Use ChatGPT, Claude, Codex, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Gamma for practical business productivity.
- Write effective business prompts for documents, emails, reports and presentations.
- Summarize spreadsheet and financial data and explain business information more clearly using AI.
- Apply AI to accounting and finance tasks such as invoice follow-up, pricing and quotation models, budget templates, and financial report narratives.
- Create realistic AI-assisted workflows across business functions such as HR, accounting, marketing, sales, support and operations.
- Prepare professional AI-assisted presentations, summaries and reports.
- Check AI output, avoid over-reliance, and apply AI safely in daily office work.
RECOMMENDED LEARNING PATH
For a stronger professional workflow, we recommend the following learning path:
What Our Students Say
"The course honestly opened my eyes to much more than I expected. I discovered new tools, possibilities, and ways of working that I had never considered before. I came to ETC wanting to learn more about AI. I left seeing a much bigger world of possibilities and, even better, feeling confident enough to explore it myself."See the original review on Google
- Ossanna Kouyoumdjian, Google Review
Frequently Asked Questions
What will I learn in the AI for Business Professionals course?
You will learn how to use AI assistants for business productivity and professional communication, write effective prompts, create documents and presentations faster, analyze spreadsheets, produce reports, and apply AI to real departmental workflows using ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Gamma.
Who should take this course?
This course is ideal for business owners, managers, entrepreneurs, marketers, consultants, administrative staff, accountants, HR professionals, customer support teams, and office employees who want to use AI in daily business work.
Do I need previous AI experience?
No previous AI experience is required. Basic computer skills are enough to start.
Is the course available online?
Yes, the course can be attended face-to-face at ETC or online via Zoom in a blended format.
How long is the course?
The course duration is approximately 30 hours of hands-on practical training.
Is this a technical AI or programming course?
No. This course is designed for business professionals. It focuses on using AI tools for productivity, documents, reports, presentations, communication, spreadsheets, and department workflows. It does not teach programming, machine learning engineering, or AI model development.
Which AI tools are used in the course?
The course uses ChatGPT, Claude, Codex, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Gamma, together with Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, Excel, Power BI, and department-specific AI tools.
Do you provide certificates?
Yes, ETC offers certificates attested by the Ministry of Education upon successful completion of the course. For more information, visit our certification roadmap.
Can I try the first session before registering?
Yes, you can attend the first session as a free trial before officially registering.
Can I pay in installments?
Yes, installment payment options are available.
Do you offer onsite training for companies?
Yes, ETC offers onsite training at client locations throughout Lebanon and internationally upon request.
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