Published · Updated · Reviewed by Horacio Poblete, CEO and founder
Before discussing hours, write in one sentence what needs to be different after the program. "The board needs to agree on where AI comes in first" calls for one format. "I want my directors to prepare the board meeting with AI" calls for another. "As CEO, I want to use AI in my own analyses" calls for a third. The length comes after that sentence, not before.
The formats, one by one
There are five main formats of executive AI training for directors and VPs. Each one solves a specific problem and fails when it’s used to solve another.
| Format | What it’s for | It fails when |
|---|---|---|
| Intensive immersion, one or two days | Aligning the board: a common language, first practical uses done with real material and a short list of priorities. | The company expects it, on its own, to change the routine: the following Monday the calendar takes over again, and without continuity the first uses don’t repeat. |
| A program that follows real work | Changing the routine: between one session and the next, the executive uses AI on the report, the meeting and the proposal that were already on the calendar, and comes back with what worked and what went wrong. | Sessions are rescheduled all the time, or the exercises drift away from real work and become homework. |
| One-on-one live classes | The executive who can’t keep a class schedule, or who needs to deal with topics they wouldn’t take to a group. They start from the person’s position, industry and moment. | They replace the board’s alignment: the CEO moves ahead alone, and the rest of leadership stays where it was. |
| Topic modules | Going deeper into a subject, such as governance and security, agents and workflows, or executive productivity, for people who already have the foundation. | They become the starting point: an agents module for a board that doesn’t yet use AI in its own routine turns into a demo. |
| Recorded content | Teaching concepts and vocabulary at each person’s pace, to many people at once, as support. | It becomes the main program for leadership: it rarely changes an executive’s routine, because no one looks at what they produced with their own material and points out what’s shallow. |
When an immersion does its job, the board comes out convinced the subject is theirs to lead, as one client puts it:
“Working with Almai was a turning point in our AI transformation journey. It was after the immersion that the team became fully convinced that we are facing the biggest transformation in technology in decades, and that we should lead this process.”
Bruno Machado
VP of Technology and Digital Mindset, Ânima Educação
Translated from Portuguese
He has spent more than 17 years at Ânima Educação, watching the group grow more than a hundredfold, to 390,000 students and over 14 brands. In 2026, Forbes Brasil named him one of the ten Best CIOs in Brazil.
Forbes Brasil: Melhores CIOs do Brasil 2026Live or recorded
For executives, the live format wins because the part that changes behavior is the critical review of what each person produces. Live, someone looks at the summary you generated of the monthly report and shows what was left out; the group discusses whether it would work in a board meeting; the content adjusts to what comes up in the room.
Recorded content has its uses: leveling concepts before a program or serving as a reference afterwards. The problem is treating it as the solution for leadership. A director who watched an entire course on prompts and never had a deliverable reviewed tends to produce workslop with more confidence: complete, well-written text that is shallow and shifts the effort onto whoever has to review it.
Online or in person
In person works better when the goal is alignment. Taking the board out of the office, away from email, for one or two days makes the conversation about priorities actually happen. Live online works better for programs spread over time, for leaders in different cities or countries and for one-on-one classes fitted into the calendar.
What doesn’t work is online with the camera off and the inbox open. If it’s remote, agree that each participant works on their own material during the session and shows the result to the group.
How to choose by goal and audience
The right audience for each format depends on who needs to change what:
- Board and senior leadership: if there’s no common language yet, start with the immersion. If there is, a program that follows the directors’ real work.
- Managers and middle management: an ongoing program centered on critical review of deliverables, spotting workslop and redesigning team workflows. They’re the ones who receive the volume AI generates.
- A single executive: one-on-one live classes, on their schedule and with their material.
- A group that already uses AI day to day: topic modules to go deeper into governance, security or agents.
How to combine formats in sequence
The formats deliver more in sequence than in isolation. An order that usually works:
- Align: an immersion with the board, to build a common language and set priorities.
- Change the routine: a program that follows the real work of the people who decide.
- Bring it to middle management: prepare managers to review and guide what the team produces with AI.
- Go deeper: governance, security and agents modules, once the foundation exists.
First, AI enters leadership’s routine. Then, the way the company works.
It’s common to do the opposite and start with the tool or with operations. Almai starts with the board, then moves to middle management and only then to operations, as the method describes. The reason is practical: a board that doesn’t use AI in its own work can’t evaluate what the rest of the company produces with it. To design that sequence in your company, see how to build an AI training plan that starts with leadership.
For people with a full calendar
There’s no quick AI course that changes an executive’s routine, but there are formats that fit a full calendar. What works:
- Use tasks already on the calendar: preparing Monday’s meeting, the monthly report, a reply to a vendor. The exercise is the work itself.
- Prefer short, live sessions: they deliver more than a long recorded course left half finished.
- Protect the time like a board meeting: a session rescheduled once tends to be rescheduled again.
- Consider one-on-one classes: when a class schedule is impossible, the format adjusts to your week.
- Start with a single use: one type of document you produce every week, until it becomes a habit.
To see where AI fits into the week of the people who decide, read how an executive uses AI day to day.
The same formats at Almai
At Almai, every program is live and designed for the company, and each live format described above has a counterpart. The AI-First Executive Journey is the program that follows the board’s real work, from routine to decisions, to the company’s priorities and to autonomy. The In-Company Executive Immersion is the one- or two-day intensive immersion. The Exclusive 1:1 Classes for Founders and C-Levels are one-on-one, remote and live, with no fixed curriculum.
For managers, the format is the AI for Middle Managers program; to go deeper into topics, the Advanced Modules. The length of each is in how long each program lasts.
