Real people, real businesses, real results.
See what actually happens when councils, universities and small businesses get hands-on at an AI Lab.
MBA students build their first AI agents
The Leeds MBA cohort could all use AI tools. Not many had built an agent. Over three hours at Leeds University Business School, five teams found a real friction, designed an agent to fix it, and built it in Microsoft Copilot, then demonstrated it to the room. Self-rated AI knowledge went from 3.07 out of 10 to 7.87, and 74% left feeling prepared to apply AI at work.
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Everyday AI sessions and AI for Business workshops
A follow-up AI Lab programme at Trinity Leeds in July 2026, spanning two days with Everyday AI sessions, an AI for Business workshop and an AI Lab Monthly meetup. The business session brought together professionals from accountancy, consultancy, financial advisory and SME management to move from AI awareness to practical, responsible AI adoption.
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Already using AI, missing the guardrails
This LUBS group didn't need persuading. Between them they were already running six AI tools across research, job applications, revision and planning. What none of them had was a way to judge when to trust the output. The session put reliability, bias and accountability at the centre, then split the room into three teams, who each designed and built a working agent in three hours in Microsoft Copilot.
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Students name the problem, then build the agent
Forty-one LUBS students opened the session with a word cloud that ran hot both ways, curious, excited, powerful, alongside privacy, fake news, replacement. AI Lab held both. By the end the room had named seven agent concepts, each starting from a real friction in their own lives: job applications, travel planning, food, fitness, finding a partner.
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From AI curiosity to workplace confidence
Leeds University Business School wanted its students to do more than talk about AI. AI Lab ran a hands-on AI in Business session covering prompting, workplace tasks and agent-style outputs. Students rated their own AI knowledge at 5.03 out of 10 going in and 7.98 coming out — a jump of nearly three points, with 91% scoring themselves 7 or above afterwards.
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The Data City turns AI interest into a roadmap
The Data City came in with broad interest in AI and no shared view of where to start. Over four hours the team worked through their own tasks, built prompts, and tried agents on real work. They left with use cases named team by team — admin, sales, engineering, delivery and operations - and a roadmap to work through rather than a general enthusiasm.
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Twenty-two agents in four hours
Exalto Consulting, a Leeds recruitment and advisory firm, had people across the business using AI tools on their own terms — but no shared way to decide what was worth building. One half-day session with nine of the team produced twenty-two defined agent use cases, sorted and prioritised, plus a scoring framework they still use. Early agents were in internal testing within the week.
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32 AI agent use cases in 3 hours
21 Degrees Digital had an AI policy, a team already using ChatGPT and Claude, and a CEO who could code. What they did not have was a way to decide what to build. Nine of the team spent three hours in Holbeck and came out with thirty-two agent use cases, and a sharper reason to build them than anyone walked in with.
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Our Pilot to Proof Event
AI Lab ran three days of sessions at Trinity Leeds, in the middle of a working shopping centre. Six sessions in all, split between a one-hour introduction for complete beginners and a two-hour session for small business owners. Four in five people who came had never used AI before. By the time they left, each of them had built something that worked.
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