Northstream Academy

AI Productivity & Automation

Live, one-to-one training built on your own business. Eight online sessions with Yves, on your files and the jobs you do every week, so each one ends with something already working for you. Two programs: AI Productivity & Automation, and Microsoft Copilot at work.

Apply for a placeSee the eight sessions
  • 8 live sessions
  • One-to-one
  • Your own student portal

  • Microsoft Copilot at work

    Use Copilot in the tools you already know, starting from your own tasks, and learn to check what it gives you.

    • 8 live sessions - one-to-one - online

The learning path

Eight sessions, arranged around you

The themes stay the same. The order moves, and every example comes from your own business.

  1. AI Foundations & Prompting

    How these tools read what you write, and why being specific beats being polite.

  2. Build Your First AI Workflow

    Turn one job you do by hand into a repeatable process.

  3. Evaluate & Improve

    Tell whether a change actually helped, instead of guessing.

  4. Files, Data & Real Information

    Work from your own documents and records, not the model’s memory.

  5. Automating the Repetitive Work

    Get the routine steps to run without you starting them.

  6. Connecting Your Tools

    Make the tools you already pay for talk to each other.

  7. Guardrails, Review & Quality

    Know when to trust the output, and catch it when it’s wrong.

  8. Your Operating System

    Everything assembled into a system you run on your own.

Microsoft Copilot at work

Learn to use Microsoft Copilot in your everyday work, with a coach who starts from your own tasks. You begin by understanding what Copilot is and which version you have. Then you learn to write clear requests and to use Copilot in tools you may already use: Outlook, Word, Teams, Excel and PowerPoint, depending on what your licence includes. Each session ends with something you keep. You also learn to check what Copilot produces, to protect confidential information and to recognise when it is better not to use it.

  • Employees and independent professionals who write emails, run meetings, handle documents or spreadsheets and want to save time without losing control of the result.
  • Beginners. No technical background is needed. Basic comfort with Outlook, Word or Excel helps.
  • People who want practical habits, not a tour of features.

The Copilot learning path: eight sessions

  1. Meet Copilot: which one do you have?

    Tell the Copilot options apart (the Copilot Chat that comes with many work accounts, or a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence), find the one available to you, and finish a first useful task. You keep: a one-page map of your options and one finished first task.

  2. Asking well: prompts and context

    Write clear requests (goal, context, source, format) and improve a weak answer. You keep: a personal prompt sheet with five prompts tested on your own work.

  3. Writing and email

    Draft, rewrite and shorten emails and documents in Outlook and Word, in your own voice. You keep: one real email and one short document, edited and checked by you.

  4. Meetings and Teams

    Turn a meeting or a long thread into a recap, decisions and action items, in Teams where your licence includes it. You keep: a recap with owners and deadlines, and a reusable recap prompt.

  5. Numbers and Excel

    Ask Copilot to explain, clean and summarise a spreadsheet, then check its work. You keep: a tidied sample spreadsheet with a short summary and a note on what you verified.

  6. Presentations and working from your files

    Build a first-draft presentation or summary from your own documents, and fix what the first draft gets wrong. You keep: a short draft presentation or a one-page brief.

  7. Reusable helpers: saved prompts and agents

    Turn tasks you repeat into reusable prompts and, where your organisation allows it, simple agents. You keep: one reusable helper for a weekly task.

  8. Capstone and your next 30 days

    Run one real task from start to finish, covering privacy, checking and when not to use Copilot. You keep: a personal Copilot workflow and a short 30-day practice plan.

Between sessions

Everything in one student portal

A month later, you can find the exact prompt from session two without digging through your inbox.

Already a student? Sign in

  • Your student portal

    The plan for all eight sessions, with your progress always visible.

  • Every session recorded

    A recap and a recording after each session, there when you need them.

  • Notes, prompts and files

    Everything we build together, kept in one place.

  • Assignments with feedback

    Exercises between sessions, on your own work, with feedback.

Applying

Start with a conversation

Tell us what you want out of it. If the program is not the right fit, Yves will say so.

  • Yves reads every application himself and talks it through with you.
  • If you are accepted, an email invites you to set up your student portal.
  • Applying creates no account and commits you to nothing.

Apply for a place

Each place starts with a conversation. No account is created until you and Yves have spoken.

How much have you used AI so far?

A sentence or two is plenty. This is what Yves reads first.

Questions about the Academy

Is it a group class or one-to-one?

One-to-one. Each student has their own sessions with Yves and their own student portal. There is no cohort and no group class.

How many sessions are there, and where do they happen?

Eight live sessions, held online. The eight themes stay the same, but the order moves around what you need, and every example comes from your own business.

What is in the student portal?

The plan for all eight sessions, a recap and recording after each one, the notes, prompts and files we build together, and any assignment between sessions, with feedback. Your progress is always visible.

How does admission work?

You apply with the form on this page. Yves reads your application and talks it through with you. If you are accepted, you receive an email to set up your student portal. Applying creates no account.

Do I need to know AI already?

No. The form asks how much you have used AI so far, from “new to it” to “fairly confident”. If you are already comfortable with prompting, we skip ahead.

Microsoft Copilot at work

Which Copilot does this cover?

The path is built around Microsoft Copilot in everyday Microsoft apps. It does not cover GitHub Copilot or building agents in Copilot Studio.

Do I need a paid licence?

Not always. Microsoft includes Copilot Chat at no extra cost with eligible Microsoft 365 work accounts. Copilot inside Teams and the full set of Office apps needs a paid Microsoft 365 Copilot licence. Before the first session we check together what you have, and we adapt the exercises to it.

Is my work data safe to use with Copilot?

That is part of the course. You learn what to keep out of a request, how to check what Copilot produces, and when not to use it. Microsoft says prompts and responses from work accounts are not used to train its foundation models, but your employer's rules come first. We can practise on sample material instead of real files.

How is it different from AI Productivity & Automation?

Same format: eight live one-to-one sessions online, the same student portal and the same way to apply. The difference is the tools: the exercises use Microsoft Copilot and the Microsoft apps you work in.

Want to learn AI on your own work?

Eight live sessions, one-to-one, built on the work you already do.

Apply for a place

Prefer to talk? Call (360) 605-1616 or write to hello@northstream-digital.com.