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30 min · FreeBook a discovery call ↗

AI practice workshop for leaders

Write reports.
Delegate research.
Use AI yourself.

An AI practice workshop with Stefan Hofmayr and Alexander Krauck. Up to four leaders spend a day working on their own tasks, in their own business account, with preparation and a personal follow-up session.

Book a discovery call See the AI practice workshop

Free · 30 minutes · with Stefan and Alexander

Stefan HofmayrAlexander Krauck
Stefan HofmayrManagement, processes, adoptionAlexander KrauckAI architecture, data, delivery

Hofmayr & Krauck · Linz, Austria

1 day
on site at your premises
up to 4
people from executive and operational leadership
1 hour
one-to-one session per person, about a week later
1 week
to the short guide with templates

Experience from roles, projects and engagements with

The two formats

One workshop day, two set-ups for leadership teams.

Which format fits depends on whether your leaders first want to work with AI themselves, or decide together where AI matters in the company. We settle that in the free discovery call.

AI Practice Workshop · on your own tasks

  1. 01

    Preparation

    Your tasks

    Preparatory call, questionnaire and tech check

  2. 02

    Practice day

    Your tool

    One day: set up your own routines and check results

  3. 03

    Follow-up

    Your daily work

    Short guide and a personal one-to-one session

Entry point for leaders

AI Practice Workshop

„How do I use AI myself for recurring leadership work, and what can I hand over to it?“

  • up to 4 people from executive and operational leadership
  • work on their own tasks in their own business account
  • a set-up toolkit per person, short guide with templates within one week
  • a one-hour one-to-one session per person about a week later

Prerequisite: a business account for an AI tool for each person, and a laptop.

Format in detail →
Stefan Hofmayr drawing a process on the whiteboard, Alexander Krauck explaining at the table to five managers

For the whole leadership team

AI Adoption Management Workshop

„Where does AI pay off economically for us, which guardrails apply, and where do we start?“

  • 6 to 12 people from executive leadership, operational leadership and IT
  • situation picture, bottlenecks, guardrails and scoring on value, feasibility, data readiness and risk
  • usually three prioritised initiatives, a brief for the most important one, draft guardrails
  • written summary within one week

Prerequisite: at least one member of executive management attends all day.

Format in detail →

The situation

Where many companies are stuck today.

AI is running in several places at once, but leaders have rarely experienced themselves what works today and where it fails. Those who decide on budgets and policies should know.

01

Employees

have used AI for a long time, partly with private accounts. Which data goes where, and what holds up in daily work, is often unknown to leadership.

02

IT and departments

trial licences and launch their own pilots. Each activity makes sense on its own; a shared picture in the leadership team and a prioritisation are missing.

03

Leaders

use AI now and then for an email, yet build the same report by hand every week. They have rarely tried seriously whether AI could take exactly that off their plate.

Stefan Hofmayr and Alexander Krauck with a plant manager at a CNC machine, she points at paper job tickets

On site

The examples come from your operation, for instance from the job tickets next to the machine. We prepare them from the preparatory call and questionnaire.

Why there are two of us

Management and technology. At the same table.

Most AI projects have either a business case without a dependable architecture, or an architecture without a business case. We bring both into the same project.

Stefan Hofmayr

Management, processes, adoption

Alexander Krauck

AI architecture, data, delivery

Starting point
Stefan · The concrete operational pain and target state
Alexander · Technical possibilities and system limits
Analysis
Stefan · Processes, roles, bottlenecks, decision paths
Alexander · Data sources, architecture, integrations, security
Design
Stefan · Work package, business case, controls, roll-out
Alexander · Connectors, data model, AI workflow, evaluation
Delivery
Stefan · Organisational anchoring and change
Alexander · Prototype and technical operability
Result
Stefan · Measurable process improvement and management value
Alexander · A working, verifiable AI solution
Alexander Krauck at a screen with a system diagram, Stefan Hofmayr pointing at one element

One project, two perspectives

Stefan asks which process step changes. Alexander asks which interface carries it. Both get answered at the same time.

More about us →
Stefan Hofmayr in front of his talk slide “ROI instead of gut feeling” at the all about automation trade fair talk lounge in Wels
“ROI instead of gut feeling: how to win management and plant leadership for digitalisation projects” – Stefan Hofmayr, all about automation, Talk Lounge Wels, May 2026. Post on LinkedIn ↗

Together on stage

ARS Akademie, Vienna – seminar with Stefan Hofmayr & Alexander Krauck

Making company data usable. Connecting data sources, clarifying access and applying AI. One day, in Vienna or online.

  • 04 Dec 2026Vienna · on-site & online
  • 15 Mar 2027Vienna · on-site & online
  • 23 Jun 2027Vienna · on-site & online
View seminar at ARS ↗

How we work together

Start small. Decide on evidence. Then scale.

Every stage ends with a result that stands on its own. After each stage you decide whether and how to continue.

Stefan Hofmayr placing sticky notes on a stage wall with a team
Where does your team stand? In the workshop it becomes visible on the wall, stage by stage.
  1. 01Entry

    Discovery call

    30 minutes, free of charge. One concrete process or use case, and a clear verdict: relevant now, relevant later, or not relevant.

    Details →
  2. 02One day

    Workshop for leaders

    One day on site: either the AI Practice Workshop (up to 4 people, their own tasks) or the management workshop (6–12 people, three prioritised initiatives).

    Details →
  3. 034–8 weeks

    Concrete initiative

    One prioritised initiative, bounded and measurable, for example a Decision Sprint. With acceptance criteria and a go / adapt / stop decision.

    Details →
  4. 04Ongoing

    Delivery & operation

    Integrate further sources and processes, establish roles, permissions and controls, measure and improve quality continuously.

    Details →

For the whole leadership team

AI Adoption Management Workshop

One day in which executive and operational leadership build a shared, realistic picture of AI in their own company, and leave with prioritised initiatives, clear guardrails and one concrete next step.

Format in detail →Request a date
Stefan Hofmayr drawing a process on the whiteboard and circling the bottleneck, Alexander Krauck explaining at the table to five managers
  • 01

    Live demonstration

    What current models, agents and connected data do today and where they fail, shown on examples from your own context.

  • 02

    Your bottlenecks

    Processes, decisions, knowledge: where time and margin get lost.

  • 03

    Guardrails

    Data, privacy, works council, AI Act: what is allowed and what is not.

  • 04

    Top-3 initiatives

    Value × feasibility × risk, with a one-pager for the most important one.

After the workshop

Initiatives with a clear question and a clear end.

All initiatives →
4 weeksFlagship

Decision Sprint

„Which response solves the real problem, and which one is just an expensive reaction to the visible symptom?“

Learn more →
3–6 weeks

Pilot Rescue

„Your AI pilot works in the demo but never makes it into reliable operation?“

Learn more →
4–6 weeks

Trusted Knowledge Workflow

„For which task do people still ask colleagues despite search and Copilot?“

Learn more →

Our principles

What you can hold us to.

01Measure, don’t guess
Baseline before action. Every initiative starts with a before-measurement and acceptance criteria agreed up front.
02Go, adapt or stop
We deliver a decision. “Don’t pursue this” is a good outcome too.
03With the people affected
Change the team helps shape is change that sticks. So we work with business units, works council and IT.
04Architecture over prompt tricks
AI becomes dependable through data, permissions, evaluation and clear checkpoints.
05Guardrails that enable
Data protection depends on the right set-up. We show what is possible and where the red lines are.
06Humans decide
AI widens the information base and exposes contradictions. Accountability for the decision stays with management.

Insights

Straight talk on AI in business.

All articles →
AI & data protection7 min

Personal account or business account: the threshold that really matters for AI and data protection

EU hosting, consent, self-hosting? For most companies a single question decides whether AI use is GDPR-compliant. An evidence-based overview.

Alexander Krauck
AI maturity6 min

Licences are not maturity: how to tell whether AI has really arrived in your company

Copilot for everyone, three pilots, a policy, and still little changes day to day. Why real AI maturity must be measured in normal operations, and what the stages look like.

Stefan Hofmayr & Alexander Krauck
Decision quality6 min

The hidden third option: what integrated data can change about management decisions

Discount or refuse? Many decisions see only two paths. Why connected company data can widen the decision space, and why the AI still must not decide.

Stefan Hofmayr & Alexander Krauck

FAQ

Common questions

Your question is not here? Ask us directly.

What is the difference between the two workshops?
In the AI Practice Workshop up to four leaders work with AI themselves, on their own tasks and in their own business account. In the management workshop the leadership team (six to twelve people) decides together where AI pays off economically and where to start. If you want to apply AI yourselves first, begin with the practice workshop.
What do we need for the practice workshop?
A business account for a shared AI tool for each person, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot or Gemini, and a laptop. If access is missing, we clarify in the preparatory call what is needed first.
Who is this for?
For industrial and mid-sized companies in the DACH region whose executive or operational leadership see AI as a lever for processes, decisions and results. Typical areas: operations, sales and customer service, purchasing, maintenance, commercial functions.
We haven’t done anything with AI yet. Too early?
No, this is the best moment for the workshop. You start with a shared picture in the leadership team, clear guardrails and prioritised initiatives instead of scattered experiments.
We already have Copilot or ChatGPT Enterprise. What’s in it for us?
Licences are where it starts. We look at where normal operations actually get less effort, better decisions or shorter lead times, and where pilots get stuck.
What exactly happens in the discovery call?
You describe one concrete bottleneck. We ask about process, data and responsibilities and end with an honest verdict: relevant now, later, or not relevant, and which next step would make sense. No sales pitch.
How do you handle data protection and confidential data?
The workshop and discovery call need no personal data. In initiatives we work with business set-ups under a data processing agreement and without model training, sign an NDA and, if you wish, involve data protection and the works council early. Legal case-by-case review stays with your counsel.
Do you work on site?
Yes. We prefer to run the workshop on site in Austria, Germany and Switzerland; discovery calls usually happen by video. We are based in Linz.

Next step

30 minutes. One concrete bottleneck. An honest assessment.

In a discovery call we work out whether AI is the right lever for your topic now, later or not at all. Free of charge, no slide show, with both of us at the table.

progress.worksBook a discovery call See the workshop