AI Essentials
Practical AI for working professionals: prompting that works, using it for writing, research and analysis, verifying the output, and protecting the data you handle.
About this course
This is for working professionals - managers, consultants, teachers, administrators, business owners - who keep being told AI will change their work and want to find out what is actually true. It is tool-led and practical. There is no mathematics, no coding and no machine-learning theory.
You start with how these systems produce an answer, because that single idea explains everything that follows: why they invent citations, why the same question gives different answers, and why a vague prompt returns vague work. Then you put them on real tasks - drafting a proposal, questioning a document you uploaded, turning a meeting into actions, analysing a spreadsheet, building an assistant for something you do every week.
Just as much time goes on the discipline. You will verify figures and quotes before they leave your desk, decide what must never be pasted into a chat box, and work through what the Nigeria Data Protection Act expects when the data belongs to clients, patients or staff.
You leave with a prompt library, at least one custom assistant you built, a written AI workflow for your own role, and a one-page policy you can take back to your team. Teaching is in person, on your own laptop, using accounts you keep after the course.
What you will cover
5 modules, 20 sessions.
Module 1: What these tools actually are
- How a language model produces an answer, and why it invents things1 hr
- ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot compared honestly1 hr 15 min
- Free versus paid, and what a subscription actually buys1 hr
Module 2: Prompting that produces usable work
- The four parts of a prompt that works: role, task, context, format1 hr 15 min
- Examples and constraints: controlling tone, length and structure1 hr 15 min
- Fixing a bad answer instead of starting again1 hr
- Building a reusable prompt library for your weekly tasks1 hr 30 min
Module 3: Real work - writing, documents, research and meetings
- Drafting proposals, reports and client emails in your own voice1 hr 30 min
- Questioning your own documents: uploads, long files and summaries1 hr 30 min
- Research with AI search tools, and following the citation to the source1 hr 15 min
- Meetings: transcripts, notes and the actions that come out of them1 hr 15 min
- Slides and spreadsheets: where AI helps and where it wastes your time1 hr 15 min
Module 4: Analysis, images and light automation
- Analysing a spreadsheet with AI and checking the arithmetic yourself1 hr 30 min
- Generating and editing images for slides and social posts1 hr 15 min
- Building a custom assistant for a task you do every week1 hr 30 min
- Automation with Zapier or Make, and its limits1 hr 30 min
Module 5: Verification, data protection and your own workflow
- A verification routine for figures, quotes and legal claims1 hr 15 min
- What you must never paste in: client data, staff records and the NDPA1 hr 15 min
- Disclosure, bias and the work that stays yours45 min
- Writing your AI workflow and a one-page policy for your team1 hr 30 min
Questions people ask
Do I need a technical background?
No. If you can use email, a browser and a word processor, you can take this course. There is no coding and no mathematics in it.
Do I need a paid AI subscription?
The free tiers of the main tools cover a good deal of this course. A few capabilities — large file uploads, image generation and custom assistants — usually sit behind a paid plan, so we cover in module one which ones are worth paying for and which are not. Ask the admissions team what your cohort provides before you buy anything.
What do I need to bring?
A laptop you can sign in from — nothing needs installing — and the accounts you set up in the first session, which stay yours afterwards. A phone is useful for the mobile apps but will not carry you through the exercises on its own.
These tools change constantly - will the course be out of date?
The interfaces change monthly and the judgement does not. We teach prompting, verification and data protection, which survive every update, and the tool walkthroughs are refreshed for each cohort.
Is it safe to use AI with my employer's or clients' information?
Not by default, and an entire module is devoted to this. You will learn where your prompts go, which settings to change, what the Nigeria Data Protection Act requires of you, and how to classify your own data before any of it goes near a chat box.
Do I get a certificate, and how do I pay?
You receive a Toko Academy certificate of completion; it is not a vendor certification from OpenAI, Google or Microsoft. The admissions team confirms the current fee, the cohort schedule and any instalment option at registration.
Scheduled classes
Tell us you are interested and the admissions team will be in touch about dates and payment.
Ask a question- Format
- Scheduled classes
- Contact hours
- 25.5 hours
- Sessions
- 20 across 5 modules
- Certificate
- Yes, on completion
- Who it is for
- Youth, Professionals, Corporate & Government