What our first Future Ready day taught us about EAs and AI

Last Thursday we ran the first Future Ready EA & PA Training Day in Holborn. Seven EAs and PAs joined Emily, Alice and me for the day, and a few of them had travelled down from Manchester to be there, which tells you something about how much appetite there is for this.

I want to write about it while it is fresh, partly because we are announcing new London and Manchester dates soon, and partly because the day confirmed something I have believed for a long time about how this profession is going to change.

Two kinds of EA walked into the room

The thing that struck me most was the range of starting points. Some of the people in the room were already using AI every day, in so much of what they did that it had become part of how they worked rather than a tool they picked up now and then. Others were keen to get started and had not yet found the right way in.

I had wondered beforehand whether that mix might be a problem. It turned out to be the best thing about the day. The people further along had real examples to share, and the people starting out asked the questions that the confident users had stopped asking themselves. Everyone left with something they did not have at nine o’clock that morning, including the three of us.

That is why we built the day for beginners and intermediate users rather than splitting them up. The content is tailored to the people in the room, and a room with both ends of the spectrum in it is a richer place to learn.

The pain points came up, so we followed them

Pain points were always going to be part of the day, but what I had not fully anticipated was how quickly they surfaced and how much the group wanted to stay with them. Once one person described what was genuinely getting in the way of their role, everyone else recognised something of their own in it, so we gave that conversation the time it deserved and dug into what those pressures actually looked like for each person day to day.

Those conversations were specific to each person, which is exactly the point. An EA supporting a founder in a scale-up has different pressures from a PA running a leadership team’s rhythm in a large organisation, and a generic AI workshop treats them as the same person.

Here is the part I am most pleased about. Emily, Alice and I did not try to solve every pain point live in the room. We took them away. Each attendee receives a follow-up after the day, and part of that follow-up is the three of us having worked through how AI could realistically help with the specific problems that person raised. Not a tool list. A view on their actual role.

The human side of being a high-level EA

We were clear when we designed Future Ready that it would not be a prompting course. Anyone can learn to write a better prompt in an afternoon. What the day is really about is the human capabilities that make an EA valuable at the highest level, and how AI changes what you can do with them.

We spent a good part of the afternoon on exactly that. Judgement. Discretion. The ability to read a room and a principal. Knowing what not to say in an email, and what to raise in person instead. These are the things no tool is going to replace, and they are the things that become more visible, not less, when the routine work is lighter.

We also talked about where the role is going. Everyone in the room could feel the shift, and I wrote recently about why I believe AI will not replace the EA role. What the day showed me is that the EAs and PAs who lean in now are not just protecting their roles. They are redefining them, and in most cases their executives have not yet caught up with what is possible.

What the day is, and who it is for

Future Ready is a one-day, in-person programme delivered by Emily Partridge, Alice Garside and me. It is small by design, so that we can work with each person’s role rather than talk at a room. It is built for EAs and PAs at any stage with AI, from those who have never opened a tool to those who use one every day and want to go further.

You can read the full outline on the Future Ready EA & PA Training Day page, and see how it sits alongside our other EA and PA training.

One of the seven, Executive PA Anna Baines, has shared her view of the day. You can read Anna’s success story, and all the Future Ready day reviews as they come in.

New dates for London and Manchester

We will be announcing the next London and Manchester dates very soon. If you would like to be the first to hear, email emily@lilyshippen.co.uk or keep an eye on our Upcoming Dates page and we will let you know as soon as they are confirmed.

If you were in the room in Holborn last week, thank you. You made the day what it was, and your follow-ups are on their way.

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