Program Dates: November 19, 2026, from 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Delivery: 1-Day In-Person at Lehigh University
Program Cost: $1,195 (Includes meals)
Private Delivery Available: If you have a group of 15 or more, please contact us at execed@lehigh.edu to arrange for a private offering of this program! This program is available in 2 formats: live online (3 sessions) or in-person (1 day).
Program Overview
You've used ChatGPT. You're faster at email and first drafts - and you suspect that's a fraction of what's actually possible. Meanwhile, new tools launch every week, your organization hasn't issued clear guidance, and you’re not sure where to start.
This hands-on workshop moves you from using AI to building with it. Instead of chasing specific tools, you'll learn to work by capability - research, writing, meetings, presentations, data analysis, media, custom assistants, and automation. You'll also learn to judge any tool (even the ones that don’t exist yet) against clear criteria: output quality, verifiability, data sensitivity, cost, and fit for the task.
From there, you'll move from tools to workflows. You'll map a recurring process from your day-to-day work, decide where AI should automate, augment, or stay out entirely, and design the approval gates and escalation rules that keep you in the loop and accountable for the result. You’ll leave with evaluation criteria, reusable templates, and one AI-enabled workflow you can put to work immediately.
Impacts & Benefits
- Match AI tools to business capabilities - research, writing, meetings, presentations, analysis, and media - rather than to brands or hype.
- Evaluate AI tools using criteria such as output quality, verifiability, data sensitivity, cost, portability, and fit for task.
- Build a custom assistant for repeated professional tasks.
Who Should Attend?
- You're proficient at prompting, but your actual work processes haven't changed.
- You can't tell which new tools deserve your time and which are hype.
- You're uneasy about what's safe to put into an AI tool.
- You keep hearing "agents" and "automation" and aren't sure what they'd mean for your work.
- Map a recurring work process and identify where AI should automate, augment, or stay out.
- Distinguish between chatbots, workflows, automations, and agents.
- Design human-in-the-loop safeguards - approval gates, escalation rules, and monitoring - for AI-enabled and agentic workflows.
Instructor
Burak Eskici is a teaching assistant professor in the DATA department at Lehigh University and co-director of the Computer Science and Business program. He teaches computing, data science, and AI across undergraduate and graduate levels. Previously, he worked on digital development at the World Bank and held academic roles at UC San Diego, J-PAL South Asia, and Harvard University. He holds degrees in Industrial Engineering from Boğaziçi University and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard, specializing in computational social science.