Built for Business Users
No coding. No IT background needed. Every session assumes participants are business professionals — and builds from there. If you can use Microsoft 365 today, you're ready.
Copilot Foundations Course
Stop Doing Work
Stop Doing Work
That AI Can Do For You.
Copilot Foundations is NovoCircle's flagship AI Training for Business Users course — a private, cohort-based program that teaches your team to use Microsoft Copilot to eliminate busywork, automate repetitive workflows, and free up capacity for higher-value work. No coding background required.
Now available in-person — Denver / Fort Collins & Seattle / Bellevue / Everett. Virtual everywhere else.
The Agent Boss Mindset — watch the program overview
Your team is capable. Your tools are ready. So why is so much of the week still consumed by work that should already be automated?
The Problem
The Solution
You're paying for AI you're not using.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is already in your technology stack. But without structured training, it stays a novelty — a tool that gets used once during a demo and then forgotten. The capability is there. The gap is knowing how to deploy it on real work.
Copilot Becomes Part of How Your Team Works
The course moves Copilot from a novelty demo to a deployed tool by providing structured training on real-world work, ensuring the technology stack you already pay for is actually utilized.
Your best people are doing work below their pay grade.
Proposal drafting. Status updates. Data formatting. Meeting notes. These tasks consume hours every week — hours that should be going to decisions, relationships, and strategic work. Copilot can handle most of it. But only if your team knows how to use it.
High-Value Work Gets the Attention It Deserves
It teaches your team to offload repetitive tasks like proposal drafting, data formatting, and meeting notes to AI, freeing up capacity for high-value strategic work and decision-making.
The window to build an AI-native team is now.
The organizations that invest in structured AI training today will have a compounding advantage over those that wait. It isn't about having better technology — everyone has access to the same tools. It's about building the habits and capabilities that make those tools stick.
Your Organization Builds a Compounding AI Advantage
Instead of just providing the technology, the program builds AI-native habits through a private cohort-based curriculum, giving your organization a compounding competitive advantage.
You don't have a clear path from awareness to actual automation.
Most teams know AI could help. Few have a structured process for identifying which tasks to automate first, or how to build agents that handle them reliably.
A Clear, Prioritized Path to Automation
The course identifies intelligent automation leverage points within your team's specific recurring tasks and teaches them how to build functional agents to handle that work.
This Course
A Private Training Program Built for Business Professionals — Not Developers.
Copilot Foundations is an 8-session curriculum designed for non-technical professionals who are ready to put Microsoft Copilot to work on real business problems. Every session is hands-on. Every exercise uses real workflows. Every participant leaves with something functional — not just knowledge.
The program is delivered as a private cohort for your team, with a dedicated instructor, customized to your organization's industry and workflows.
Private Cohort Delivery
Your team only. No shared cohorts with other organizations. Content is customized to your industry, workflows, and the specific business problems your team faces every day.
Eight Practical Sessions
Every session ends with something participants can use. No theory for its own sake. Participants build real automations on real work during class — not homework, not exercises on fake data.
The Curriculum
Eight Sessions. Real Workflows. Everything Built During Class.
No fluff. No theory for theory's sake. Every session ends with something participants can use.
Session 1
Introduction to Intelligent Automation
Establish a shared language around AI and intelligent automation. Participants learn what Copilot can and can't do, how it fits into their Microsoft 365 environment, and how to think about their own workflows as automation candidates.
Session 2
Workshop: Identifying Automation Opportunities
A guided workshop where participants map their own recurring tasks, identify automation leverage points, and prioritize the workflows they'll build throughout the program. This is the foundation that makes every subsequent session immediately applicable.
Session 3
Knowledge Base & Data Reliability
Learn to build and maintain a Knowledge Base that Copilot can draw from reliably. Covers data hygiene, source structure, and how to ensure the AI is working from information you trust.
Session 4
Building with Copilot Studio
Hands-on introduction to Copilot Studio — the tool that lets non-developers build custom AI agents. Participants configure their first agent during the session.
Session 5
Workflow Automation
Design and deploy automation workflows that eliminate the manual hand-offs draining time from your team. Participants build working flows that connect Copilot to real business processes.
Session 6
Orchestration Agents
Move from individual automations to orchestrated agents — AI systems that manage multi-step processes, route decisions, and operate across tools. Participants build agents that handle end-to-end workflows independently.
Session 7
CUA & Human-in-the-Loop
Explore Computer Use Agents (CUA) and design effective human-in-the-loop checkpoints that keep humans in control of decisions that require judgment, while automating the rest.
Session 8
Copilot Cowork Capstone
Participants bring everything together in a final build session. Each person (or team) completes a live, working AI-assisted workflow based on a real business problem from their organization. The result is functional and deployable on day one after the program.
Pricing
Choose the Format That Fits Your Team
All programs are private — your team only. No shared cohorts. Founding pricing available for a limited time.
| Format | Sessions | Investment |
|---|---|---|
| 4-Week Private Cohort ★ Recommended | 8 sessions over 4 weeks · 2/week · ~2 hrs each · at your location | $10,000 |
| 6-Week Private Cohort | 8 sessions over 6 weeks · time between sessions to practice | $14,000 |
| 2-Day Intensive Bootcamp | 2 full days · tight timelines, conferences, or offsites | $9,500 |
Up to 10 participants per cohort. Flex seats for 11–15 participants at $400/seat. On-site travel quoted separately.
Founding pricing is available for a limited time. Ask us during the discovery call.
Book a Discovery Call
Your Instructor
Jerry Schmierer
AI Educator, Mentor, and Coach | NovoCircle
Jerry Schmierer is an AI Educator, Mentor, and Coach at NovoCircle with a career-long track record of helping working professionals adopt technology to solve real problems. Over three decades as a University of California Cooperative Extension Advisor, Jerry became known as a leader in bringing information technology into the hands of people who had never thought of themselves as tech users — using education, mentorship, and hands-on coaching rather than theory.
That same philosophy drives his approach to AI. Jerry designed the Copilot Foundations curriculum specifically for business professionals with no coding background, building every session around hands-on practice, real workflows, and a simple principle: the goal isn't to learn AI — it's to stop doing work that AI can do for you.
In addition to his Plant Science degrees, he holds a graduate certificate in Management Information Systems from California State University, Chico.
Background
- 30+ years teaching technology adoption to non-technical professionals
- University of California Cooperative Extension — Senior Advisor
- Graduate Certificate, Management Information Systems — CSU Chico
- Automation Delivery Lead — NovoCircle
Frequently Asked Questions
Copilot Foundations is a private, cohort-based AI training program from NovoCircle that teaches business teams to use Microsoft Copilot to eliminate repetitive work, automate workflows, and free up time for higher-value tasks. It is an 8-session curriculum designed specifically for non-technical professionals — no coding or IT background required. Copilot Foundations is the flagship course in NovoCircle's AI Training for Business Users suite.
Yes. Copilot Foundations is built on Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Studio, which require Microsoft 365 licensing. If you're unsure whether your current subscription includes Copilot capabilities, we can help you assess that during the discovery call.
The 4-Week program runs 2 sessions per week, each approximately 2 hours, delivered at your location. The time commitment is approximately 4 hours per week — manageable for working professionals. A 6-Week format and 2-Day Intensive Bootcamp are also available.
Standard cohorts accommodate up to 10 participants. We can flex to 15 at an additional $400 per seat. Cross-departmental cohorts work well — participants often find that building automations across functions increases impact. We've run cohorts with operations, HR, finance, and client services teams together.
Yes — and this is a core part of how we deliver. Before the program begins, we take time to understand your team's roles, the tools they use, and the workflows they want to improve. Examples and exercises are calibrated to your environment. The final session is explicitly a capstone where participants complete a working automation based on a real problem from their organization.
No. Copilot Foundations is an independent training program delivered by NovoCircle. We are not affiliated with Microsoft and don't receive referral fees for tool recommendations. The curriculum is built around Microsoft Copilot because it's the most accessible and widely deployed AI toolset for business teams — but our focus is on your team's outcomes, not any vendor relationship.
Most AI training is conceptual — it explains what AI is without teaching people to do anything with it. Copilot Foundations is entirely practical. Every session ends with something participants built during class. We also focus exclusively on your team's workflows, not generic scenarios. The result is a team that leaves with working automations, not just awareness.
Participants leave with all materials, prompt libraries, and the automations they built during the program. The capstone session is specifically designed so that each participant's final project is functional and deployable on day one. NovoCircle also offers ongoing advisory support for teams that want help expanding what they built.
WHERE DOES THIS FIT IN YOUR JOURNEY?