Compare Your Options

Licenses alone, or
licenses people actually use?

The most common sentence we hear on a discovery call is some version of we are paying for Copilot and nobody uses it. The licenses were the easy decision. The hard part, the part that produces the ROI, is a person doing their work differently on Monday, and a seat does not buy that.

Sometimes the licenses really are enough, and the honest section says when.

See How They Stack Up Book a Free 30-Minute Discovery Call

A team with hands in together at the close of an AI Adoption for Teams workshop

Side by Side

How they stack up

What each approach produces over a year. Seat prices are typical for business AI tools, not quotes.

Licenses plus a team workshop

Buying AI licenses and hoping

Cost

Licenses plus a team workshopThe same seats, plus $1,500 for AI Foundations or $3,000 for a hands-on workshop, once.

Buying AI licenses and hopingRoughly $25 to $30 a seat per month, every month, for business AI tools. For 20 people, that is $6,000 to $7,200 a year.

Usage

Licenses plus a team workshopEveryone leaves the session having used the tool on their own work, with a workflow to repeat.

Buying AI licenses and hopingA few enthusiasts use it daily. Most people opened it once. The bill does not know the difference.

What people learn

Licenses plus a team workshopWhich tasks the tool is good at in their role, what is safe to put in it, and how to check the output.

Buying AI licenses and hopingWhatever they figure out alone, which for most people is a chat box and a few experiments.

Governance

Licenses plus a team workshopA written rule on what can go into the tool, specific to your data, taught in the session.

Buying AI licenses and hopingWhatever the vendor's defaults are, and whatever people assume.

Who champions it

Licenses plus a team workshopThe whole team saw the same thing in the same room, so the hesitant saw colleagues do it.

Buying AI licenses and hopingThe one enthusiast, until they get tired of being the help desk.

ROI

Licenses plus a team workshopMeasured: hours back on named tasks, with a shortlist of pilots to keep going.

Buying AI licenses and hopingUnmeasured, which is hard to defend when somebody questions the line item.

Figures for the alternative are typical ranges, not quotes. Your numbers will differ, and we would rather you check them than take ours.

When to Pick Which

Which one fits your situation?

Six situations we hear on discovery calls, and the honest call for each.

You bought seats six months ago and usage is flat

Workshop

This is the classic case. The tool is fine. The team never got a reason or a method to use it. A workshop on their own work fixes both in a half day.

A small team of self-starters is already using it well

Licenses are enough

If usage is high and people are sharing what works, do not fix what is not broken. Give them the free tools on this site and check back in a quarter.

You have not bought seats yet

Workshop first, then the right seats

AI Foundations or the audit will tell you which tool fits your work before you commit to a year of licenses. Many teams find the free tier is enough for the first pilot.

Leadership wants an AI usage number

Workshop

A workshop produces named workflows and measured hours back. That is a number. Seat counts are not.

You are rolling out a platform company-wide

Vendor training plus AI Foundations

Use the vendor's rollout training for the buttons. Add AI Foundations for the part they do not cover: what to use it for in your industry and what is safe to put in it.

Half the team is afraid it will replace them

Workshop (AI Adoption for Teams)

No license fixes that, and no memo does either. The adoption workshop maps how everyone is wired for AI and builds a plan that keeps people in charge of the tools.

The Honest Answer

Where the licenses alone are enough

If your team is small, self-motivated, and already sharing what works, the seats are doing their job and a workshop would be a nice-to-have. The same is true if one strong internal champion is teaching everyone else and has the time to keep doing it.

Where licenses alone lose is everywhere else, which is most places. Adoption is a people problem before it is a technology problem, and the teams that get results have one thing in common: they wire AI into real workflows with clear owners. A seat is a prerequisite for that. It is not the thing itself.

Abigail Merrill giving a workshop with the AI for ROI™ Framework on screen

Run Your Own Numbers

What would real usage be worth?

Take one task your team does every week, put in the hours, and see what a realistic pilot gives back. Compare that to the seat cost in the full cost picture. If the number is big and usage is flat, the gap is the training.

Open the AI ROI Calculator See Every Price

Questions

The questions behind the question

Do you train on Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT specifically?

Yes. We hold Google and Microsoft AI certifications, and the workshops are built in whatever tools you already pay for. The point is your workflows, not a specific product.

What if we are not sure the licenses were the right choice?

The $495 AI Opportunity Audit looks at your tools and workflows and tells you which subscriptions earn their keep, which do not, and which workflows would make the rest earn theirs. It is vendor-neutral and it credits toward a workshop within 30 days.

What does a workshop cost?

AI Foundations is $1,500 for any group size, virtual. The two hands-on workshops are $3,000 for up to 20 people, in person or virtual. Every price is on one page.

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