AI Coaching · Track 03 of 3

Understanding the AI Landscape

A decision map for AI, built from capability categories and risk — not from chasing model names or tool trends.

What this track builds

A map, not a list of apps.

This track builds a decision map for AI by teaching capability categories and risk, instead of chasing model names or the latest tool trend. By the end, a learner can explain the tool categories, choose a method based on evidence, data sensitivity, and risk, evaluate a vendor's feature claims critically, and propose a governed experiment rather than an unmanaged rollout.

The approach P1 uses throughout: from remembering tool names → to understanding capability categories → to choosing by task and data → to evaluating claims → to experimenting with governance.

Who it's for, and how it runs

The same shape as every P1 track.

Learners & format

  • P1 Thailand staff across operations, finance, HR, and support functions
  • 12 weeks · 90 minutes a week · groups of 6–20
  • Short demo → simulated-scenario practice → applied to approved real work → reflection and refinement

The safety line

  • No customer, personal, financial, or internal-document data goes into a tool the company has not approved
  • Practice uses training or anonymised data only
  • The person using AI always owns the decision and the outcome

Every session follows the same arc: connect to real work → teach the concept → demonstrate it with and without context/evidence → practise it → apply it to one real, approved task → reflect and set the risk-checked homework.

The 12 sessions

From a category map to a governed portfolio.

01

Mapping the AI landscape

Know the main categories of AI — general assistant, knowledge-grounded, persistent assistant, research, creative, productivity, automation/agent, company system — and use the map instead of a list of apps.

02

Models, language, and limits

Understand well enough how systems generate answers, and why they can be confidently wrong — probabilistic output, context, hallucination, tool use, model updates.

03

General-purpose chat assistants

Choose ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or an equivalent by task, context, plan, and policy — never by model name alone.

04

Persistent assistants: Gems, Projects, and the AI Brain

See the difference between a throwaway chat and a workspace with custom instructions, knowledge, and version control.

05

Knowledge tools: NotebookLM and source grounding

Choose a source-grounded tool when evidence matters — source-grounded answers, inline citation, source selection, coverage gaps.

06

Research and current information

Know the difference between the model's built-in knowledge, web search, and deep research — recency, primary source, the citation trail.

07

Creative AI: image, audio, video

Decide when creative media genuinely helps the work and when it should not be used — a creative brief, rights, likeness, disclosure, a fact check.

08

AI inside everyday work tools

Understand AI embedded in documents, email, meetings, and spreadsheets — in-flow productivity, organisational data, permissions, enterprise data protection.

09

Automation and agents

Understand levels of automation — retrieve, draft, recommend, act — and why they must start narrow: an approval gate, logs, least privilege.

10

Data, privacy, and governance

Assess data before using a tool, and know the escalation point — classification, retention, access, approval, auditability.

11

Evaluating products and avoiding tool-chasing

Evaluate tools and features by real task, evidence, and total cost — use-case first, a pilot, a rubric, adoption, lock-in, change management.

12

Portfolio and P1's experiment plan

Turn the team's AI map into a portfolio that can actually be developed — standardise, sandbox, or retire, with an owner and a review cadence.

A task to try

Evaluate a new tool without chasing it

This track does not teach a list of apps. It teaches capability categories and selection criteria, because app lists expire and criteria do not. The prompt below is week 11's criteria in a form you can use on whatever proposal is on your desk right now.

Which product are you in front of

This track is deliberately vendor-neutral. Week 3 teaches choosing between ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude by the nature of the task, the context, the service plan and company policy — never by brand.

To keep the names straight: a persistent assistant is called Gems in Gemini and Projects in Claude and ChatGPT. NotebookLM belongs to a different category altogether — answering from a defined set of sources.

Features and limits shift with plan, region and account. Open the official documentation linked at the foot of this page before concluding what any tool can do.

Copy this whole block into the chat
Context: someone has proposed that my team start using a new AI tool, and I do not want to decide by hype.
Task: help me evaluate it in five steps
  1) sort my team's main tasks (listed below) into capability categories, not app names
  2) say which category this tool sits in, and where it overlaps what we already have
  3) separate what the vendor's official documentation states from what the marketing claims
  4) raise the data, access-permission and approval questions we must answer before any trial
  5) propose one small reversible experiment, with success and stop criteria set in advance
Constraints: where you are unsure about this tool, say you are unsure and point me to the official documentation page I should read. Do not guess pricing or features.
Format: steps 1-2 as tables, steps 3-5 as lists.

Tool proposed: [tool name]
My team's main tasks: [list 3-5]

Let the tool help you evaluate, but an AI answer is neither evidence nor an approval. Any real trial still goes through whoever owns the data and access decision under company policy.

How it's assessed

Evidence of applied judgement, not attendance alone.

To pass

  • Attend at least 10 of 12 sessions
  • Submit 8 or more pieces of applied evidence
  • Each piece states its inputs, assumptions/limits, how it was checked, and who owns it

Week 12

  • A portfolio and a 30-day experiment plan for one use case
  • Graded on accuracy, tool fit, safety, and demonstrated learning
  • Presented to the group with a set review date

Facilitation rule throughout: use only anonymised or constructed P1 examples; pair learners as task-owner and checker; measure decision quality and reusability, never the number of prompts or apps tried; and if a use case touches sensitive data, finance, personnel, or system access, stop and escalate through P1's approval channel.

What we teach as fact, checked 2026-08-03

The map is the point — this track's five load-bearing facts.

  • Tools and features change by plan, region, account, and company policy, so this curriculum teaches capability categories and selection criteria — never a guarantee of a specific feature.
  • ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude each handle a persistent workspace or knowledge differently; check current rights and plan before importing or sharing data.
  • NotebookLM is built to answer from a notebook's own sources with inline citations, but the user must still open the sources and check completeness.
  • Web search adds currency and citations but never replaces reading the primary source — AI answers can be wrong or cite sources that don't exist.
  • Any agent or workflow that acts needs a permission boundary, an approval point, a log, and a process owner.

Instructor note: open the official references below before teaching the related session, and match button names and plan tiers to whatever P1 has approved on the teaching day.

Continue

This track works well as an orientation before Track 01, or as a governance layer once a team is already using AI day to day.

We use this method in our own companies.

This is the curriculum P1 Thailand built and uses to train its own team, before teaching it to anyone else.

Bring this track to your team.

Twelve weeks, one shared foundation, applied to each person's real work.

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