Applied AI Bootcamp · November 2026

Applied AI for finance professionals

An eight-Saturday course in Colombo on working with AI, including where it is useful and where it should not be trusted.

  • 8 Saturdays
  • 32 Live hours
  • 7 Capstone builds
Fewer weekends in Excel.
A BuildrLabs Lego professional ready for the working week
Next cohort
November 2026
Saturdays, 2pm to 6pm
Where
Hatch Works, Colombo
In person, Week 7 online
Fee
LKR 65,000
Instalment plan available

Excl. VAT & SSCL

Seats
15 seats
Allocated on a first-paid basis
Sound familiar?

The problems this is meant to help with.

None of this is about being more rigorous than you already are. It is about knowing which parts of the job these tools can safely take on, which comes from using them rather than reading about them.

You have been asked to look at AI, and you want to know what happens when it gets a calculation wrong.

You are being asked to approve other departments' AI subscriptions without much idea what they actually do.

At month end you pull figures out of several different systems into one spreadsheet by hand, and it usually takes up a weekend.

Once the figures are in, writing the commentary that explains why they moved takes longer than assembling them did.

Matching invoices against purchase orders and bank statements takes up a large part of your team's week.

By the end

What you will be able to do.

Every session produces something you keep. These are the things every participant leaves with.

Practical AI fluency

Text, voice, image and code. In a finance role that mostly means handling documents rather than doing calculations.

A personal AI stack

Claude Code, Obsidian, Wispr Flow and Motion set up around your own work, plus access to a library of more than 1,000 AI tools across 40 categories.

A way of judging new tools

You are often the person approving software you had no part in choosing. You learn how to assess one on its own terms.

Seven things you built

Including an assistant trained on your own policies and past filings, and an automation running on real work.

A week on your own function

Week 6 goes deeper on the work closest to what you do, with someone who does that work using these tools.

A 90-day plan

A written plan for the three months after the course, reviewed by the rest of the group, that you can show to whoever needs to approve the work.

Access to HatchX

A private network connecting BuildrLabs graduates with companies, founders and professionals across the Hatch group.

The tool library

1,000+ tools. 40+ categories.

Graduates keep access, maintained and updated continuously.

Explore the library
The eight Saturdays

What each Saturday covers.

Every session produces something you keep. Seven Saturdays run in person at Hatch Works; Week 7 is an online build day.

  1. Week 1

    Foundations, Mindset, and Your Personal AI Stack

    What you build

    Claude Code, Obsidian, Wispr Flow and Motion, set up and working by the end of the day

    What it covers

    Four modules. One is a review of your own working week, which for most finance people shows how much time goes on assembling reports and answering the same requests.

  2. Week 2

    Multimodal AI and Custom Assistants

    What you build

    An assistant trained on your company documents, which you can ask questions

    What it covers

    Your policies, past filings and prior-year treatment become searchable. This includes reading documents that only exist as scans.

  3. Week 3

    Creativity

    What you build

    A 60-second video advert with script, voiceover, visuals and music

    What it covers

    Image, video, audio and voice generation using Midjourney, Ideogram, Runway, ElevenLabs and Suno.

  4. Week 4

    Automation, Agents, and Apps

    What you build

    A working web application on a public address

    What it covers

    Three modules covering automation in Zapier and Make, agents that run without supervision, and building an application. Also covers APIs, which is how these tools connect to the systems you already use.

  5. Week 5

    Ethics and Your 90-Day Roadmap

    What you build

    A 90-day plan and a written AI usage policy for your team

    What it covers

    What data can and cannot go into a tool, how to work securely, hallucination and accountability, and how GDPR, the AI Act and industry rules apply.

  6. Week 6

    Domain Track Deep-Dive

    What you build

    An assistant that answers a real question from a colleague, and an automation your team would use

    What it covers

    A full day going deeper on the work closest to your own. You work out where AI would help most in your role, build an assistant on your own documents, then build an automation and test it against real data.

  7. Week 7

    Hackathon Build (online)

    What you build

    Your assistant, automation and application combined into one thing

    What it covers

    A full day of building with facilitators available, plus a rehearsal of your demo.

  8. Week 8

    Hackathon and Demo Day

    What you build

    Your finished project, presented

    What it covers

    You demonstrate what you built to the rest of the group, get feedback, and receive your certificate.

One cohort. Every function.

You will not be in a room of people just like you.

The November 2026 cohort brings marketers, sales leads, finance teams, HR heads and business owners into the same room at Hatch Works. For five Saturdays you build alongside people who do different jobs to you, so you see how finance automates month end while someone else automates a campaign.

  • Weeks 1 to 5 Everyone together, on the same tools
  • Week 6 Split into your own function’s track
  • Week 8 Back together for Demo Day, every function presenting
12 of 15 seats left 15 seats shared across every function, given to whoever pays first.
What you do not need
  • A technical or engineering background
  • Any previous experience with AI tools
  • The ability to write code
  • Permission to change your accounting system. Everything you build works alongside the systems you already use.

If you use a laptop for work, you are qualified.

November 2026 cohort
LKR 65,000

Excl. VAT & SSCL

Eight Saturdays at Hatch Works, Colombo, every session, materials, tool access and your certificate. An instalment plan is available: ask us and we confirm it in writing before you pay.

Who teaches it

People who do the work for a living.

Everyone teaching on this course does the work for a living. The group includes heads of AI and founders, along with digital and transformation leads from Dialog Axiata, MAS KREEDA, John Keells Group and Wavenet. In Week 6 you go deeper on your own function, with someone who works in it.

Ammar Ahamed

Ammar Ahamed

Head of Growth
BuildrLabs and Vector Agents
Isuru Alagiyawanna

Isuru Alagiyawanna

Head of Curriculum, BuildrLabs
Head of AI Engineering, Veracity
Dr Sithira Ambepitiya

Dr Sithira Ambepitiya

Head of AI, AIGP
MBBS turned AI Lead
Lishan Peiris

Lishan Peiris

Assistant Manager, Brand · Wavenet
Lecturer, AMDT
Mevan Liyanage

Mevan Liyanage

Senior Technology Consultant, Evensys
Power Platform, RPA & Copilot Studio AI agents
Abubakker Bakthathi

Abubakker Bakthathi

Founder & CEO, Paralox Media
AI solutions, consulting & training for brands
Dilusha Perera

Dilusha Perera

Lead Digital Evangelist
MAS KREEDA
Hasara Munasinghe

Hasara Munasinghe

Lead Project Manager
Octave, John Keells Group
Sudeshi Jayasuriya

Sudeshi Jayasuriya

Founder, Mira AI
Former Director of HR, Boardpac
Kavindu Eshara

Kavindu Eshara

CEO & Founder
ABSOLX CORE AI
Naseef Athaur Rahman

Naseef Athaur Rahman

Founder, Cravix
Exited
Faahika Fakir

Faahika Fakir

Head of Operations
Oceans

More trainers join each cohort as new domain tracks open.

Learn from them. Enrol now
Common questions

What people ask us first.

What happens if the AI gets a calculation wrong?

Hallucination and accountability are taught directly in Week 5, so you learn how to design around the problem rather than hope it does not happen. Week 5 also covers what data you can put into a tool when you work in a regulated environment.

How is AI used in finance?

For the work that surrounds the numbers rather than the calculations themselves: drafting report commentary, reading and routing documents, summarising what changed between periods, setting up forecasts that can be rerun with new assumptions, and assembling compliance paperwork. Most AI for finance work sits in that surrounding layer.

Can AI replace accountants?

No. It can take on repetitive work that follows clear rules, such as routing documents, producing first drafts and summarising. Judgement, sign-off and professional responsibility stay with a person.

Is it safe to use AI with financial data?

Only if you set the conditions yourself. Week 5 covers what should and should not be shared with a tool, how to work securely inside a company, and how GDPR, the AI Act and industry rules apply. Some of the workflows taught do not require you to share source data at all.

What AI tools do finance teams use?

The four you set up in Week 1 and use throughout are Claude Code, Obsidian, Wispr Flow and Motion. Alongside those you work with Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini for text, and Zapier, Make and n8n for automation.

Will it work with our accounting system?

Week 4 covers APIs and connectors through Zapier, Make and n8n, which reach most common finance systems. Your Week 6 project is scoped against the systems you actually use, so bring those details with you.

I am not technical. Can I build an automation?

Yes. There is no prerequisite, and where something needs code, Claude Code writes it while you tell it what you want. Most of building an automation is working out the rules, which is already part of your job.

Can I bring real work to the sessions?

Bring whatever you are comfortable bringing. Week 5 covers the boundaries in detail, and everything you build will work on sample or redacted material.

Applications for the November 2026 course are open.

The course runs for eight Saturdays at Hatch Works, Colombo, starting in November 2026. It costs LKR 65,000 (excl. VAT and SSCL), and there is an instalment plan. There are 15 places, given to whoever pays first.