The Professional's Guide to AI Training in 2026: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude and Beyond

JBI TrainingInsights & Perspectives

AI & Emerging Technologies · June 2026

The Professional's Guide to AI Training in 2026: ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude and Beyond

AI tools are now embedded in how teams work — but most professionals have had no structured training on how to use them well. Here's how JBI Training is closing that gap, with practical courses covering every major platform.

Three years ago, AI was a specialist subject. Today it is a basic professional requirement. ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Gemini — these tools are now sitting inside the applications your team uses every day. The question is no longer whether your organisation will use AI, but whether the people using it have been trained to use it effectively, safely, and consistently.

JBI Training has delivered technology training to professionals and enterprise teams for over 30 years. In the last two years we have built one of the most comprehensive practical AI training programmes in the UK — covering not just the tools themselves, but the deeper skills needed to build, deploy, and govern AI systems in real organisations.

This article sets out what we offer across the three dominant AI platforms, and how each programme is structured for different audiences.

The Three Platforms Every Professional Needs to Understand

The AI landscape in 2026 is dominated by three ecosystems, each with a distinct character and a distinct audience. Understanding which platform is right for which use case — and getting proper training on each — is now a core professional skill.

OpenAI / GPT

ChatGPT & LLMs

The original mainstream generative AI platform. Essential for developers building AI-powered applications, and for professionals integrating AI into everyday workflows via the API.

View GenAI courses →

Microsoft

Copilot Ecosystem

AI embedded directly into Microsoft 365 — Teams, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint. Also Copilot Studio for building custom agents. The enterprise default for most UK organisations.

View Copilot courses →

Anthropic

Claude & MCP

Claude is emerging as the preferred AI for developers building sophisticated agentic systems. The Model Control Protocol (MCP) is rapidly becoming the standard for connecting AI agents to real-world tools.

View MCP & Claude courses →

ChatGPT, OpenAI and the GPT Ecosystem

GPT-based models remain the most widely used AI tools in the world. For business users, that means ChatGPT. For developers, it means the OpenAI API — and increasingly, building production-ready applications that use GPT models at their core.

JBI's courses in this area span the full spectrum: from professionals learning to write effective prompts, through to developers building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and full chatbot systems.

Our Build a Chatbot with Python, RAG and OpenAI course is one of our most popular developer programmes — participants leave with a working, production-quality chatbot built on real data.

Relevant courses for ChatGPT & OpenAI

AI Prompt Engineering— platform-agnostic, practical prompt design
Mastering Prompt Engineering for GPT Using LLM— advanced GPT-specific techniques
Build a Chatbot with Python, RAG and OpenAI— developer course, hands-on project
Mastering LLMs— deep technical understanding of large language models
AI Development with Large Language Models— API integration and LLM app development
Harnessing Generative AI— business-focused GenAI course for non-developers

Microsoft Copilot: From Essentials to Copilot Studio

For the majority of UK enterprise professionals, the most immediately relevant AI is already sitting inside Microsoft 365. Copilot is now present in Teams, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and SharePoint — but most users have never received any structured training on how to use it effectively.

JBI offers a complete Copilot training pathway, from first-time users through to technical professionals building custom AI agents in Copilot Studio.

The Copilot Training Pathway

Microsoft Copilot Essentials— first-time users, core features
Microsoft Copilot 365 Introduction— M365 integration, everyday use
Microsoft Copilot (Pro) Introduction— Pro features on standard M365 licences
Microsoft Copilot 365 Advanced— complex workflows, automation, productivity
Create Agents in Copilot Studio— low-code agent design and deployment
Building Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot— declarative agents within M365

For developers building AI-powered applications within the Azure and Microsoft Foundry ecosystem, we also offer:

Claude, the Anthropic Ecosystem, and the Model Control Protocol

Claude — Anthropic's AI model — has rapidly become the preferred platform among developers building serious agentic AI applications. Where GPT models dominate consumer-facing products, Claude is increasingly the choice for developers who need reliability, long context windows, and safe, controllable agent behaviour in production systems.

The most significant development in the Claude ecosystem in 2025 was the widespread adoption of the Model Control Protocol (MCP) — an open standard that allows AI agents to connect securely to external tools, databases, APIs, and services. MCP is now the de facto standard for building enterprise-grade AI agents, and JBI is one of the few training providers in the UK offering dedicated MCP training.

Our Model Control Protocol course covers Claude API workflows from first principles through to building production MCP servers with tool discovery, sandboxed execution, per-tool authentication, and audit logging.

Claude & MCP courses at JBI

Model Control Protocol (MCP)— Claude API, MCP server architecture, production patterns
Build Agentic AIs with Python, RAG and MCP— autonomous agents, safety rails, evaluation
Building Production-Ready AI Agents— multi-agent systems, LangChain, adaptive retrieval

Agentic AI: The Most Important Shift in 2025–26

The defining development in AI over the last eighteen months has not been a new model — it has been the arrival of agentic AI: systems that do not simply answer questions, but take actions, use tools, make decisions across multiple steps, and hand off tasks between specialised sub-agents.

Every major AI platform — OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic — now has a framework for building agents. The skills required to build them reliably and safely in production are in extremely short supply.

JBI's agentic AI training covers:

Build Agentic AIs with Python, RAG and MCP— 2-day, MCP-focused, safety-first architecture
Building Production-Ready AI Agents— 3-day, full breadth from Python foundations to multi-agent systems
Create Agents in Copilot Studio— Microsoft-ecosystem agents, low-code
Building Agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot— declarative agents in M365

AI Foundations for Business and Non-Technical Professionals

Not everyone needs to build AI systems. Many professionals — managers, analysts, strategists, operations teams — need to understand what AI can do, how to work with it effectively, and how to make sound decisions about adopting it. JBI's foundation-level courses are designed precisely for this audience.

Corporate and Team Training

The majority of JBI's AI training is delivered to corporate teams — cohorts of 6 to 20 professionals, trained together with content customised to their industry, tools, and existing skill level. We deliver virtually via MS Teams, Zoom, or Webex, or face-to-face at our London training centre or your premises.

Clients include organisations across financial services, media, the public sector, engineering, and professional services. We are experienced in calibrating AI training content for teams with mixed technical backgrounds — making the same course genuinely valuable for a senior data scientist and a business analyst in the same room.

Training your team?

We can customise any of our AI courses for your organisation — tailoring content, examples, and exercises to your tools, workflows, and industry context. Contact us to discuss your requirements.

Get in touch

Data Analytics as the Foundation for AI

Effective AI use depends on data literacy. Understanding how to prepare, model, and visualise data remains a critical skill — both for those building AI systems and for those interpreting their outputs. JBI's data analytics programme covers Power BI, Python, Databricks, Azure ML, Microsoft Fabric and more.