Before Session 1
Ten minutes now, so Saturday is all practice
What AI Really Is (and Isn't) · Saturday, September 19, 2026
Pick one AI assistant, create your free account, and run a thirty second test. Do it this week and you spend the whole session practising instead of hunting for a password.
You do not need to be good with computers. If you can send a WhatsApp message, you have everything you need for this session.
Choose one assistant and create your free account
It genuinely does not matter which. Everything taught across the sixteen sessions works on all five. Take the one that looks simplest to you, or the one you already have.
Claude
AnthropicCalm, uncluttered, and the strongest writer of the five. Good if long forms and busy screens put you off.
claude.aiChatGPT
OpenAIThe one everybody has heard of, and the one your children and colleagues are most likely already using. Strong at everything, very good voice mode.
chatgpt.comGemini
GoogleIf you have a Gmail address you already have an account, so there is nothing to create. Sits close to Gmail, Docs and your Android phone.
gemini.google.comCopilot
MicrosoftAlready built into Windows 11, so there may be nothing to install at all. The easy choice if the computer you use is a Windows one.
copilot.microsoft.comAll five are free to start. The free plan is enough for every one of the sixteen sessions. Nobody in this series needs to pay to keep up.
Pick one and stay with it for four months. Switching tools halfway through is the most common reason people quietly fall behind. The skills carry over perfectly. The buttons do not.
Angel demonstrates on Claude, because that is what the demos are built in. If you choose another one the prompts are identical and only the menus differ, and each session's prep page will tell you where.
Still not sure? Pick by what you already own.
You have a Gmail address
Take Gemini. Your account already exists, so there is nothing to create and no new password to remember.
You use a Windows 11 computer
Take Copilot. It is already on the machine. Look for the icon in the taskbar or search for Copilot in the start menu.
Neither, or you are on a phone
Take Claude or ChatGPT. Install the app, sign up with your email, and you are done in three minutes.
Creating the account, in three moves
- 1
Open the link above in your browser, or install the app on your phone.
- 2
Tap Sign up. If you have a Gmail address, choose Continue with Google: it is the fastest route and there is no new password. Otherwise enter your email and choose a password.
- 3
Write that password down somewhere you will find it on Saturday. This is the single most common reason people lose the first ten minutes of a class.
Run the thirty second test
This proves the account works, and it gives you your homework at the same time. Copy the line below, paste it into the assistant, and send it.
Hello! Can you answer me in English? Introduce yourself in three sentences.
If it answers you, you are ready for Saturday. Take a screenshot of its reply and keep it: that is the homework at the bottom of this page.
Get Zoom ready
One registration covers all sixteen Saturdays. Do it once and you never think about it again.
One link, all sixteen Saturdays
Zoom emails you your own personal link, valid for every session in the series. Keep that email, or star it. It is also how your attendance is counted towards the certificate.
On a phone, install Zoom first
Install the free Zoom app before Saturday. On a computer the link opens in your browser and there is nothing to install.
Two screens if you can
Zoom on one, the AI assistant on the other: phone and computer, either way round. If you only have a phone that is completely fine, and we will show you how to switch between the two.
The vocabulary
Six words worth meeting before Saturday
You do not have to learn these. Read them once so they are not brand new when they turn up on Saturday. The full list of twenty-three is on the concepts page, with diagrams.
Model
The finished result of all that learning. One very large file of patterns.
LLM, large language model
A model trained on text, whose entire job is guessing the next word.
Prompt
What you type. The request itself.
Context
Everything it can see while it writes your answer. Your question, the earlier messages, the document you pasted, your profile note.
Your profile note, your .md file
Five or six lines about you that you paste at the top of a conversation, so you stop repeating yourself.
Hallucination
When it invents something and says it with exactly the same confidence as a fact.
To do before Saturday
One task, five minutes
In the cohort WhatsApp group, send two things:
- 1
The screenshot of your assistant's reply to the thirty second test.
- 2
One sentence: "One thing I would like AI to do for me this week is..."
No account yet? Just send the sentence. We will start with you on Saturday.
Why this homework? Because somebody who has already touched the tool comes to class to practise, not to discover. And your sentences become the examples we build the next sessions around.
The Session 1 pages
Everything for Session 1, on your phone
No PDF to download. Each page opens in your browser, reads well on a phone, and prints if you prefer paper.
That is everything. See you Saturday.
Session 1 runs 10:00 AM Central, 4:00 PM Kinshasa, 5:00 PM Lubumbashi. Forty-five minutes, live, free, and recorded if you cannot make it.