In-person AI training for small businesses.AI training for small businesses.

Operating across London and Kent, we help small business owners, entrepreneurs and their teams get started with AI. In-person, jargon-free training — no prior knowledge or IT skills required.

  • Helping small business owners, entrepreneurs and their teams get started with AI
  • In-person, jargon-free training – no prior knowledge or IT skills required
  • London and Kent
See our courses

Get your business started with AI in half a day.

Introduction to AI for Small Businesses is our signature course, and your first step to using AI tools in your business. A practical, jargon‑free half day, in a small group, led by a qualified trainer. You’ll learn about AI, which tools are worth using, and how to put them to use safely and effectively.

  • Your first step to using AI tools in your business – learn about AI, which tools are worth using, and how to put them to use safely and effectively
  • A practical, jargon‑free half-day course, led by a qualified trainer

Introduction to AI for Small Businesses

£150

per participant

½ day

9am – 1pm

8 max

attendees per course

  • Croydon · Bromley · Sevenoaks · Tunbridge Wells
  • Suitable for owners, entrepreneurs and their team
Book nowSee the full course

What you’ll walk away with

  • Ideas you can deploy

    Real examples from businesses like yours.

  • Universal AI skills

    Core skills that transfer across a range of AI tools.

  • Try the tools

    Hands-on time with the tools you’ll actually use.

  • Understand the risks

    Protect yourself, your data and your customers.

  • Know AI’s strengths and limits

    Where it’s genuinely useful, where it fails, and how to tell.

  • Apply it that day

    Leave with skills and ideas ready to use it immediately.

Course requirements: No technical knowledge required. You will be required to bring a smart phone, tablet or laptop computer. Full course instructions provided on sign-up.

Explore the jobs that AI could be taking off your plate.

Our half-day introduction course gets you started on jobs like these straight away. When you’re ready to go further, our follow-on courses show you how to safely integrate AI to support you and your team.

  • Our half-day introduction course gets you started on jobs like these straight away.
  • When you’re ready to go further, our follow-on courses show you how to safely integrate AI to support you and your team.

  • Marketing and social media

    Post every week without the Sunday-night scramble. Create a month of posts that sound like you, plus pick the images to go with them, in an afternoon.

  • Customer emails and reviews

    Reply to enquiries, complaints and online reviews quickly, kindly and professionally, even at the end of a long day.

  • Quotes and proposals

    Turn your rough notes or price list into a clear, professional quote or proposal in minutes, not a whole evening.

  • Research in an afternoon

    Size up your competitors, analyse what customers are saying in your reviews, and find new suppliers worth a call, all in hours rather than days.

  • Notes into next steps

    Record a voice note after a job or meeting, and have a tidy to-do list and follow-up email waiting by the time you get home.

  • Make sense of your numbers

    Upload a spreadsheet of your sales or costs and ask AI straight questions, like which jobs make you the most profit, or where your money goes each month.

  • Paperwork, sorted

    Explore the small print in a supplier contract or tender in minutes, and get first drafts of your terms, policies and job adverts.

  • A sounding board for big decisions

    No business partner to talk it through with? Test a new idea, a price rise or a plan to grow, and find the questions you should be asking.

Every one of these ideas uses readily available AI tools, and there are dozens more uses just like them. Crucially, what we teach is AI skills, so as tools evolve and new capabilities emerge, you’ll be able to keep up.

See our courses

AI is already paying off. But most SMEs don’t feel confident using it.

AI use among small businesses has more than doubled in a year, yet fewer than one in five owners feel very confident using it day to day. That’s where training like ours comes in.

  • AI use among small businesses has more than doubled in a year
  • Yet fewer than one in five owners feel very confident using it day to day – that’s where training like ours comes in

What businesses using AI are seeing

  • saw productivity improvements

  • have developed new or improved processes

  • were able to reduce costs

Source: Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, AI adoption research, 2026

What’s holding owners back

  • are concerned about security and privacy

  • are concerned about accuracy

  • aren’t sure how to use AI

Source: Simply Business, SME Insights Report 2026, survey of 1,842 UK small businesses

Learn in a classroom,
not from behind a screen.

Why I started Vant Academy · 1 min 20ReadHide the transcript

Hi, I’m Dan and I am the founder and lead trainer here at Vant AI Academy. I started Vant because I could see small businesses being left behind when it comes to AI. Not for lack of interest, but because so much of the training being offered wasn’t being built with small businesses in mind. All too often, it’s an online course you’re expected to work through in your own time, or it’s training tied to a particular tool or a particular company.

So, we do things differently. Our training is in person, small group and built specifically around small businesses. The jobs you actually do, the questions you actually have. You can ask anything, try the tools out, talk through the risks as well as the opportunities, and hear how people in businesses just like yours are thinking about using AI.

AI is moving so fast at the moment that keeping up is almost impossible when you’ve also got a business to run. And that’s where we come in. Let us keep on top of the latest developments, the next new tool, so you can focus on your business whilst still benefiting from all the advantages that AI has to offer.

So, have a look around our site and at our courses, and if you’ve got any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I hope to see you on one of our training courses very soon.

The AI training on offer to small businesses … just isn’t good enough. I founded Vant Academy to help change that.

After more than a decade working at the heart of the Civil Service, then building my own small business, I founded Vant Academy because I felt the AI training being offered to small businesses just wasn’t good enough. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy — AI could supercharge their productivity and creativity, creating new jobs and opportunities — yet too often they’re being offered generic e-learning, or a course tied to a single AI platform.

I’m excited by the potential offered by AI tools when they’re used properly — that’s why I’ve built real expertise in AI, recognised through my status as a professional member of the Chartered Institute of IT. But I can also see the potential harm to businesses who don’t integrate it into their businesses.

I know how busy you are, because I’ve run a business too; if you’re going to invest time in training, you want to know it’s going to be worth your while. For years, my career in government was about turning intimidating ideas into something people could actually act on, and that’s exactly what I do now. As an AET-qualified trainer, I love helping people like you put AI to work in their businesses.

Running a small business means wearing every hat, and whether you own the business or work in it, there’s never enough time in the day. I know, because I’ve built and run one myself.

That’s exactly why AI matters: used well, it can win back hours, spark fresh ideas and help your business grow. Yet the AI training on offer to small businesses, the backbone of our economy, just isn’t good enough: too often it’s generic e-learning or a course tied to a single AI platform. I founded Vant Academy to help change that.

For more than a decade at the heart of the Civil Service, my job was turning intimidating ideas into something people could actually act on. That’s what I do now with AI, as an AET-qualified trainer and a professional member of the Chartered Institute of IT. If you’re ready to see what AI could do for your business, I’d love to show you.

MBCS
Professional member, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
AET certified
Award in Education and Training Certified Trainer
Daniel Patterson Founder and Lead Trainer
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