Welcome to theCommons Academy
The professionals who thrive with AI aren't the most technical — they're the most intentional.
Learn to use AI at work the safe, simple way — find what helps, fence what's risky, and forge your own way of working.
Practical AI training for experienced professionals — free diagnostics, a self-paced Library, and live weekly build sessions.
Choose your door
Printables, micro lessons, and the diagnostic tools. No card, no expiry.
Browse the free set →CommittedEvery tool, template, replay, and track. $249/year charter through August 31, 2026, then $357/year standard. $39/month. Charter members keep $249/year while subscribed.
See what's inside →Leading a teamTeams & orgs — group access for up to 20 people. Seats for your whole group, one shared view of results, and billing your finance team can work with.
Talk to us →Prefer to buy one thing outright? Standalone courses run $67–$147.
Built live
Every session is built in public on Thursdays, then kept in the Library.
Free stays free
The printables, micro lessons, and diagnostics never move behind the paywall.
Our own frameworks
FrictionIndex™ (where your week goes), HOZ™ (what a person keeps), and the True-Net ROI Canvas™ (what an AI change is really worth) — developed here, used in the work.
A person decides
Nothing here hands the final call to a model. You keep it.
Free
Free for everyone. No email wall. Print them, share them.
All four parts, one interactive page — walk out with a paste-ready Foundation Brief.
All four parts, one interactive page. Build your foundation and walk out with a paste-ready Foundation Brief.
Open FreePrintable card: your helper can get quietly worse while still reporting success. Build the landmark that catches it.
Open FreePrintable card: what to feed your notebook, what to leave out, and what to ask it first.
Open FreePrintable card: your words, your rhythm, your never-say list — on one page.
Open FreePrintable card: sort any input into feed, redact, or leave out — in seconds.
Open FreeA worked example: one idea fanned out into five finished pieces, same voice.
Open FreePrintable card matching each audience to the shape the message should take.
Open FreeThe 15-minute weekly habit that keeps your reach going.
Open FreePrintable scorecard: score any task against the five gates and get a clear hand-off verdict.
OpenHands-on, no signup — for people who do real work.
FrictionIndex™
Score the friction slowing your week — before you automate anything.
HOZ™ Mapper
HOZ stands for Human-Owned Zones — the calls a person keeps. Map which ones stay yours, and what is safe to hand to AI.
True-Net ROI Canvas™
A one-page worksheet that prices an AI change honestly: hours saved minus the time you spend maintaining, re-prompting, and paying for it.
Flash Team!
Build your dream augmented team — people + AI — in a 10-minute play, then keep the kit.
Find your archetype
7 questions, ~3 minutes. Know which of the 7 AI archetypes fits how you work.
Built live, every Thursday — join the next free session →
Free replays
Watch now — free replays
Thu, Aug 13 · Put It to Work · Part 1
Find Your Friction (and Map It Before You Build)
1 recording — 7:00pm ET
Thu, Aug 6 · Clone Yourself · Part 4 of 4
One You, Many Outputs
2 recordings — 12:00pm + 7:00pm ET · midday build + evening encore build
Thu, Jul 30 · Clone Yourself · Part 3 of 4
Fence Your AI Self: Can I Safely Put This In?
2 recordings — 12:00pm + 7:00pm ET · midday build + evening encore build
The shelf
A short index of tools and tracks — click any row to open it.
How it works
The whole approach in three plain steps — the same method behind every free tool, live session, and program.
Find
Find your AI archetype and the tasks worth handing off.
Fence
Learn what stays human (your Human-Owned Zones) and what's safe to use.
Forge
Build AI helpers that work in your voice — start with one.
Live & fresh
Join us live — free
Next up — Leading the Change: Adoption Without the Fear · Thursday, August 20. Save your seat below.
The climb
Start free every Thursday with Live Sessions, then climb — begin with a 90-minute Demystifier and go as far as you want. Same Human-Owned Zones method, more support at each step.
Live programs are priced per cohort / seat. The self-serve Library membership is separate. Compare pricing →
Find the Friction
Pick your first AI agent and scope it in 90 minutes.
Workforce Transformation
Score your friction, map your Human Owned Zones, and roll out AI governance that actually works.
For teams and organizations. Agentic AI doesn't replace your team — it gives every person a set of AI helpers. We help leaders score the friction, set the guardrails, and stand up governed agent suites your team will actually trust and use.
Subscribe for new tools, reports, and field notes the moment we publish them. Free. No spam.
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Membership
You were never replaceable. Now prove it — together.
Every tool, template, replay, and track — plus the interactive session canvas — for $249/year charter, or $39/month.
Free tools · No credit card required
Teams & orgs — group access for up to 20 people
Multi-seat access, centralized billing, aggregate Archetype reporting, SSO, and Net-30 invoicing. Larger rollouts and facilitation are delivered by Acute Incite.
Trust, Governance & AI Principles
When you see AI here, we're accountable for it — and we've linked each commitment to the international standard that backs it. Verify for yourself.
Red line: When in doubt, verify. Every source link works — click it and check.
A person makes the final call. AI helps; it doesn't decide. We follow two published standards for who is accountable when things go wrong: the US government's AI Risk Management Framework, and the OECD's international AI principles.
Source: NIST AI RMF 1.0 · OECD AI PrinciplesIf AI touched it, we say so. That is the rule in the EU AI Act, Europe's law on AI: you deserve to know.
Source: EU AI Act (Europe's AI law), Art. 50We hunt for bias in the AI tools we teach and build. UNESCO's ethics standard is our floor.
Source: UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AIWe use it only for what you opted into. GDPR Article 5 is how we stay honest.
Source: GDPR Art. 5We identify risks — broken outputs, security holes, misuse. Then we manage them. Our guide is the US government's AI Risk Management Framework.
Source: NIST AI RMF 1.0AI helped make some of this site, our tools, and program deliverables. Treat it as a first draft. Verify any fact or number before you rely on it.
Source: Modeled on the EU AI Act (Europe's AI law), Art. 50(2)If it's legal, medical, or financial — talk to a pro.
Source: Educational use disclaimerReferences: NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0); OECD Recommendation of the Council on Artificial Intelligence (OECD/LEGAL/0449); UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (2021); Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (EU AI Act); Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR). Citing these frameworks does not imply endorsement by the issuing bodies.
