A Work Smarter with AI Workshop is a standalone session — CitizenWorks teaches, your team learns, everyone walks out with an action plan. An AI Strategy Circle is ongoing facilitation — CitizenWorks guides, your people lead, and the group builds applied AI fluency over time. The difference is who leads, how long it lasts, and what it produces.

Most organizations start with a workshop. Some need a circle. A few need both. The right choice depends on where your team is right now.

When a workshop is the right call

A Work Smarter with AI Workshop makes sense when your team needs a starting point. They haven't had a structured conversation about AI yet. They don't have shared language for it. Some are curious, some are skeptical, and nobody's sure what's real vs. hype.

The workshop creates that shared foundation in 60–90 minutes. Everyone works through exercises based on their actual roles, builds a personal action plan, and leaves with a clear picture of where AI fits in their work.

A workshop is right when:

  • Your team hasn't engaged with AI in a structured way yet
  • You need shared language and context before making bigger decisions
  • You want to test the waters before committing to something ongoing
  • You're bringing in a new initiative and need buy-in across departments

Single session. Clear deliverable. Starting at $1,500.

When a Strategy Circle is the right call

An AI Strategy Circle makes sense when your team already has the basics — they've done a workshop or they've been experimenting on their own — and they need structured, ongoing space to go deeper.

A circle is a defined group inside your organization: your ERG, your task force, your leadership team. They meet monthly or bi-weekly with CitizenWorks facilitating. Each session builds on the last. The group brings real problems from their work, and we work through them together.

The difference from a workshop: in a circle, your people lead. We facilitate. Nobody's presenting slides. The group is doing the work — testing AI on real projects, sharing what's working, troubleshooting what isn't.

A Strategy Circle is right when:

  • Your team has baseline AI literacy and needs applied depth
  • You have a committed group (ERG, task force, leadership team) ready to meet regularly
  • You want fluency that builds over months, not a one-time boost
  • You need facilitation, not training — someone to guide the conversation, not lecture

Monthly or bi-weekly. Ongoing. Starting at $1,500/month.

The key distinction

Workshops produce action plans. Strategy Circles produce fluency.

An action plan is "here's what I'm going to do with AI starting tomorrow." Fluency is "I can identify AI opportunities in my work without someone telling me where to look." Both are valuable. They serve different stages.

Think of it this way: the workshop is the first session with a trainer who assesses where you are and builds you a program. The circle is the ongoing coaching relationship where you show up every week, do the work, and get better.

Can you do both?

Yes, and many organizations do. The most common pattern:

  1. Run a Work Smarter with AI Workshop for the broader team — shared language, immediate action plans
  2. Form a smaller AI Strategy Circle from the people who were most engaged — ongoing depth, applied projects
  3. The circle members become your internal AI champions who pull the rest of the organization forward

This is how grassroots AI adoption works. You don't need to train 200 people at once. You need 10–15 people who are genuinely fluent and visibly effective. The rest follow.

What if you need more than either?

If your organization needs a listening tour, a bootcamp, champion coaching, tool evaluation, and quarterly reporting — you're looking at a Transformation Partner engagement. That's the full relationship: CitizenWorks embeds alongside your team for 6–12 months and drives adoption from the inside.

But most organizations don't start there. They start with a workshop. The rest follows naturally.

Not sure which is right? Book a call — 30 minutes, no pitch, just an honest assessment of where your team is and what makes sense.