How to roll the three new AI Leadership units across your senior team in 8 weeks.

A practical playbook for L&D leads at organisations with 8+ senior leaders to develop. Sequencing, economics, week-by-week milestones, and what good looks like.

Updated 24 April 2026 · 8 minute read · By the TESS Group team

The three new AI Leadership apprenticeship units (AU0009, AU0010, AU0011) are technically modular — you can take any one in isolation. In practice, where TESS sees the strongest ROI is running all three as one closed cohort for a single senior team over ~8 weeks. This post is the playbook for L&D and HR leaders who want to do exactly that.

Specifically, this is for organisations who have:

• 8 to 15 senior leaders who need AI development at the same time;
• An apprenticeship levy account they're under-spending (most levy payers are);
• An active AI agenda that is going to play out in the next 6-12 months regardless;
• A preference for closed cohorts over sending individuals into open mixed-employer programmes.

If that's you, here's how to run it.

Why a closed cohort beats individual registrations

The three units cover Strategy → Governance → Delivery. Sending individuals into open cohorts means each leader does one of those alone, with peers from random other organisations. Then they come back and try to align with their senior colleagues — who all have different AI mental models. Three things break:

1. Vocabulary drift. Each leader picks up a slightly different framing from a different cohort. Six months later you have a 12-person exec team with 12 different definitions of "AI strategy".
2. Confidentiality friction. The most useful peer-learning conversations are about your specific AI rollout, your data, your customers. You can't have those conversations in an open cohort.
3. No shared output. Open cohorts produce individual portfolios. Closed cohorts produce a shared transformation plan that the same room of leaders has signed off together.

The closed-cohort model fixes all three. One organisation, one cohort, one shared business problem.

The 8-week sequence

Here's how a typical cohort runs:

Levy economics for a typical cohort

For context, that's roughly the price of one Russell-Group executive education module for one delegate. You're getting a full 8-week leadership programme for twelve leaders for the same money — and pulling it from levy you'd lose anyway if not spent.

The five preconditions for success

Honest answer: this works brilliantly when these five things are true. Less well when they aren't.

1. Senior sponsor. Someone at exec/board level has put their name on the cohort. Not "endorsed" — actually attending or actively chairing milestone sessions.
2. Live AI agenda. The organisation is genuinely going to do something with AI in the next 12 months regardless of the cohort. The cohort accelerates and de-risks something already in motion.
3. Shared business problem. The cohort applies learning to one named org-wide AI rollout, not abstract case studies. Pick the rollout before week 1.
4. Calendar protection. Each leader gets ~3-4 hours of protected time per week for 8 weeks. Their direct reports and PAs are warned and respect it.
5. Honesty on adoption. The cohort can openly discuss their organisation's actual adoption gaps. Egos parked at the door. The Leadership Coach helps with this but the senior sponsor sets the tone.

Common rollout mistakes

• Mixing levels. Putting senior leaders in the same closed cohort as middle managers. Don't. Run separate cohorts; the senior peer dynamic matters.
• Splitting the units across separate cohorts. "Let's run AU0009 first this year, AU0010 next year." Loses the compounding effect and risks losing leaders between cohorts.
• Optional attendance. "Come if you can." This kills closed-cohort dynamics. If senior leaders are not committed for 8 weeks, defer the cohort or shrink the participant list.
• Treating it as L&D rather than transformation. The cohort outputs are operational artefacts (strategy, governance framework, transformation plan), not training certificates. If your business case treats it as "leadership upskilling" you'll get less from it.

How to scope a cohort

If you're at the "I think this might be right for us" stage, the practical next steps are:

1. Take the 3-minute employer fit assessment for a tailored read on which units fit and whether the full pathway is right.
2. Identify the cohort — name 8-15 senior leaders. The rough rule: anyone who's making decisions about AI investment, governance, or rollout in the next 12 months.
3. Scope the shared business problem — one named AI rollout the cohort can actually act on.
4. Confirm levy headroom — you need £2,250 per learner available in your levy account (most levy payers do).
5. Talk to us. We come back with a fit plan, dates, and named Leadership Coach within 24 hours.

Or browse the AI Leadership Pathway page for the full programme picture, FAQ, and the closed-cohort delivery model.