Hands-on Agentic AI for Leaders

James Gray

UC Berkeley Instructor | ex CIO & CPO

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14 people enrolled last week.

Build the AI workflows that accelerate you and your team

You've evaluated AI, approved it, and set strategy for it. You've built pieces of it yourself. The next step is a method: a repeatable way to turn your highest-value work into AI workflows, whether you collaborate with the AI or it runs on its own, and bring your team along.

In 4 weeks, you'll:

✅ Apply a proven 7-step lifecycle to build, ship, and manage any AI workflow

✅ Shift from chatting to building — manage AI building blocks as files you own

✅ Build a portfolio of evaluated agent skills that capture your expertise and run anywhere

✅ Ship AI workflows you collaborate with or that run on their own

✅ Build single-agent and multi-agent systems for your highest-value work

✅ Keep an AI Registry: one record of every workflow and the AI behind it

The method is hands-on, sharpened over nearly a decade at Microsoft building the data platforms the business ran on. I teach AI strategy at UC Berkeley Haas; this cohort is where I teach building.

Rated 4.8/5. Small cohorts, 1:1 coaching, lifetime access. You build in every session, on your own work.

What you’ll learn

Turn AI into your competitive advantage—automate, optimize, and lead smarter with agentic workflows.

  • Audit your recurring work to surface high-value workflow candidates — the ones where AI moves the business.

  • Take any workflow through analyze, deconstruct, design, build, test, run, improve — to ship it reliably.

  • You'll leave with a proven, repeatable methodology you can apply to every workflow you build — long after the cohort ends.

  • Distinguish the four types of context your AI needs — instructions, memory, files, and systems of record — and where each is kept.

  • Save every skill, prompt, agent, and context file you build to a GitHub repository — version-controlled and portable.

  • Build a knowledge graph your AI reads before it answers and updates after, so no conversation starts from zero.

  • Package your repeatable expertise — research, writing, analysis, decisions — as Agent Skills any AI can execute consistently.

  • Test your skills on real cases and compare versions side by side, so you refine with data, not intuition.

  • Leave with a portfolio of tested skills running on Claude, ChatGPT, M365 Copilot, or Gemini Enterprise.

  • Build workflows with fixed steps that run reliably without you, then schedule them to run on their own.

  • Build workflows you collaborate with at key steps, keeping quality control on high-stakes work.

  • Leave Week 2 with two working workflows: one you compose by hand, one you design, build, and test with the framework.

  • Build single-agent workflows on Claude, ChatGPT, M365 Copilot, and Google Gemini Enterprise for your highest-value use cases.

  • Build multi-agent systems where specialized agents hand off work to complete complex, multi-step workflows.

  • Shift from doing the work to designing the systems that do it for you.

  • Start your AI Registry in Week 1 and register every workflow you build, capturing how your business actually runs.

  • Link each workflow to the skills, prompts, and agents it uses, so anyone on your team can find and reuse them.

  • Leave with one place to see, share, and maintain every AI workflow your business runs.

Learn directly from James

James Gray

James Gray

UC Berkeley AI Instructor | Former CIO/CPO | Trained 5,000+ Leaders

UC Berkeley
Microsoft
See all products from James

Who this course is for

  • Hands-on Leader: Leaders who learn by doing, building AI workflows on their own work with cutting-edge tools.

  • Strategy-Focused Executive: Executives who want hands-on command of the latest AI to lead an AI-powered strategy with credibility.

  • Team Leader: Leaders driving practical AI adoption on their team, starting with the workflows that deliver measurable value.

Prerequisites

  • You have a paid subscription to one or more: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini

    The course extensively utilizes AI assistants, such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Some lessons are unique to these tools.

  • No coding experience

    The course does not require coding experience, but we will use AI code editors (Cursor/VS Code) to build and refine prompts

  • Learning in a small, supportive cohort

    This cohort experience is for people who learn best in small groups and value personalized feedback from an experienced instructor.

What's included

James Gray

Live sessions

Learn directly from James Gray in a real-time, interactive format.

Personalized 1:1 coaching

When you are stuck or want to go deep on your unique use case, book a 1:1 slot at a time that works for your busy schedule

Lifetime access

Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to. The content is updated monthly.

Private LinkedIn Group

The learning continues after the course with bi-weekly live sessions to share the latest AI tech and ways to create business value.

Community of peers

Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.

Certificate of completion

Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.

Maven Guarantee

Your purchase is backed by the Maven Guarantee.

Course syllabus

27 live sessions • 47 lessons • 10 projects

Week 1

Nov 9—Nov 15

    Session 1: Agentic AI Foundations & Workflow Identification

    • Nov

      9

      Agentic AI Session 1 - Americas & Europe

      Mon 11/93:45 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)
    • Nov

      10

      Agentic AI Session 1 - Americas & Asia-Pacific

      Tue 11/1012:00 AM—2:00 AM (UTC)

    Assess Agentic Fundamentals and Workflow Opportunities

    5 items

    Optional: Office Hours - Builder Stack Setup Help

    • Nov

      10

      Optional: Agentic AI Live Q&A - Americas & Europe

      Tue 11/103:00 PM—3:30 PM (UTC)
      Optional
    • Nov

      11

      Optional: Agentic AI Live Q&A - Americas & Asia-Pacific

      Wed 11/1111:00 PM—11:30 PM (UTC)
      Optional

    Set up Your AI Platforms - Part 1 (Self-Study)

    5 items

    Set up Your Builder Tools - Part 2 (Self-Study)

    3 items

    Session 2: Setup Your Workspace and Deconstruct Your Workflows

    • Nov

      11

      Agentic AI Session 2 - Americas & Europe

      Wed 11/114:00 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)
    • Nov

      12

      Agentic AI Session 2 - Americas & Asia-Pacific

      Thu 11/1212:00 AM—2:00 AM (UTC)

    Setup Your AI Workspace

    4 items

    Deconstruct Your AI Workflows

    3 items

    Optional: Office Hours + 1:1 Personalized Coaching

    • Nov

      14

      Optional: Hands-on AI Office Hours

      Sat 11/144:30 PM—5:00 PM (UTC)
      Optional
    1 more item

Week 2

Nov 16—Nov 22

    Session 3: Agent Skills

    • Nov

      16

      Agentic AI Session 3 - Americas & Europe

      Mon 11/164:00 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)
    • Nov

      17

      Agentic AI Session 3 - Americas & Asia-Pacific

      Tue 11/1712:00 AM—2:00 AM (UTC)

    Build Agent Skills

    5 items

    Session 4: Deterministic & Guided Workflows

    • Nov

      18

      Agentic AI Session 4 - Americas & Europe

      Wed 11/184:00 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)
    • Nov

      19

      Agentic AI Session 4 - Americas & Asia-Pacific

      Thu 11/1912:00 AM—2:00 AM (UTC)

    Build Deterministic and Guided Workflows

    8 items

    Optional: Office Hours + Personalized 1:1 Coaching

    • Nov

      19

      Optional: Agentic AI Live Q&A - Americas & Europe

      Thu 11/193:00 PM—3:30 PM (UTC)
      Optional
    • Nov

      19

      Optional: Agentic AI Live Q&A - Americas & Asia-Pacific

      Thu 11/1911:00 PM—11:30 PM (UTC)
      Optional
    1 more item

    Cohort How-To Videos

    0 items

Free resource

How to Build Agentic AI as a Leader cover image

How to Build Agentic AI as a Leader

Fundamentals of agentic systems

Gain foundational knowledge of agentic systems and their applications in automating tasks and business processes.

Designing and deploying agentic systems

Learn the process of designing, building, and deploying simple AI agents using no-code and pro-code approaches.

A live demonstration of a multi-agent system

Observe a real-time walkthrough of building and deploying a multi-agent system.

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Testimonials

  • This journey transformed me from a curious non-programmer into someone who can actually create AI workflows and agentic systems. Huge thank you to James Gray for creating such a supportive learning environment where theory and practical application went hand in hand.
    Testimonial author image

    Istvan Borbino, PhD

    Healthcare Innovator
  • I’ve always approached AI with a systems mindset, and taking James Gray's Hands-on AI Leadership course reinforced the importance of structuring AI workflows beyond just intelligence—it’s about reasoning, planning, and executing in a way that scales.
    Testimonial author image

    Sarah Payne

    AI Strategy & Execution
  • Just completed James Gray's "Hands-on AI for High-Performance Leaders" course — a transformative experience that elevated my AI expertise through practical applications, possibly the best pound-for-pound learning experience I've had.
    Testimonial author image

    James Cameron

    Cybersecurity & AI Executive Advisor
  • A huge thank you to James Gray for his incredible dedication and technical expertise throughout the course. This learning journey has equipped me with the knowledge to leverage AI in innovative ways and strategically lead AI-driven projects. Excited to apply these new skills to create value and drive transformation!
    Testimonial author image

    Corina Richter

    Transformational Leader
  • I vibe-coded my first app in Cursor today. The hype train makes it sound like your grandparents could do this. Mine could not. These tools are incredibly powerful and the fact that I could do this at all (with a lot of help from James Gray, my class on Maven, and Claude), is a testament to how far they've come. I am blown away!
    Testimonial author image

    Lauren Taylor

    Strategic Early-Stage Capital

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