Context Engineering: The Key to Agentic Design

Context engineering prepares everything prior to the prompt. Even the best prompts will fail without the right context. Giving AI backstory and reference material will create a landscape that is suitable to your scenario. But you can't just give an AI agent infinite data; you have to understand memory as a stateful context, so you don't overwhelm your agent by asking it to do too many things, with too much information. Managing context intentionally is the key to successful agentic design.

Context engineering is the discipline of designing the informational environment of an agent. It governs what an agent knows, what it ignores, what it remembers, what it forgets, and how those decisions change over time.

Our skill in designing agents is not determined by our ability to prompt - it is our ability to collect and manage context. If prompt engineering taught us how to ask better questions, context engineering teaches us how to design the mind that answers them.

Filled with frameworks and practical examples, this interactive session will teach you how to manage context while building AI agents. Deep dives on memory types, context windows, and agentic architecture case studies.

Prompt Like a Pro: Practical AI Techniques

Turn vague ideas into precise outputs.

In this fast, hands-on workshop you’ll practice live with multiple AI models and a repeatable framework that makes your prompts clear, targeted, and reliable—so AI delivers exactly what you need.

Come ready to play. Bring a laptop (or watch along). We’ll jump straight into copy-paste prompts and step-by-step mini-drills—the same methods pros use in ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity to boost creativity, strategy, and productivity.

You’ll learn how to:

- Apply the PILLARS framework to craft high-performance prompts on demand.
- Synthesize long PDFs into crisp, actionable briefs in minutes.
- Spin up a Custom GPT to coach you in the voice of your favorite author—without losing your brand tone.
- Benchmark multiple LLMs side-by-side and pick the right model for the task.
- Use Advanced Voice Mode to role-play tricky conversations and prep responses in real time.

Expect a fast-paced, game-style session packed with prompts, templates, and workflows you can use the moment you leave.

Can be 45, 60, or 90 minutes long, depending on the number of interactive games. Best for beginners and intermediate levels of AI literacy.

Human-First AI: How to Find the Work That Matters Most

AI won’t replace you. But someone who learns how to use it—without losing their humanity—might.

In this reflective, hands-on session, Caelan Huntress shows how to use Generative AI to amplify your creativity, not replace it. You’ll learn to map your workflow to a five-step creative cycle—Collect, Sort, Craft, Polish, Publish—and discover which steps to automate and which to protect as uniquely human.

Through live demos, parallel prompting, and interactive exercises, you’ll compare ChatGPT, Gemini, and CoPilot side by side. You’ll learn how to coach AI like a teammate, refining tone, quality, and accuracy through feedback loops that feel more like collaboration than command.

This isn’t about working faster. It’s about working truer. By the end of this workshop, you’ll know how to identify the “last 5%” of high-value human work—the judgment, taste, and discernment that can’t be automated—and how to use AI to clear space for it.

You’ll Learn How To:

- Apply the 5-Step Creative Process to integrate AI intelligently at every stage.
- Use parallel prompting to test and compare LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and CoPilot.
- Coach AI like a teammate, using feedback loops that improve both tone and precision.
- Spot the human edge: find the creative judgment, ethical reasoning, and emotional intelligence that machines can’t replicate.
- Avoid “AI slop” by infusing your work with authentic voice and creative taste.

Expect:

A high-energy, story-rich session with live examples, audience participation, and immediately actionable takeaways. You’ll leave with new prompts, frameworks, and a reframed mindset for thriving in the age of automation—doing less of what drains you, and more of what defines you.

Can be 45, 60, or 90 minutes long, depending on the number of interactive games. Best for beginners and intermediate levels of AI literacy.

Make a Custom AI Coach to Learn Anything

Coaching is a meta-skill, which unlocks any other skill you desire. Learning how to teach an Ai partner how you think, and what you want to learn, is the work of tomorrow.

In this hands-on, interactive workshop, you will learn practical techniques that amplify your own capacity to grow.

AI is no longer a novelty skill. It’s become a practiced capability.

The real AI advantage doesn’t come from knowing which tools exist. It comes from knowing how to think with them, reflect with them, and improve your judgment over time.

In this hands-on, interactive session, hosted by Caelan Huntress, you’ll learn how to create a personal AI coach: a thinking partner that helps you learn faster, ask better questions, and turn curiosity into durable capability.

You’ll practice techniques that help you fail safely, reflect more deeply, and design workflows you can actually trust.

What you’ll practice
- Designing an AI coach that mirrors how you think and learn
- Using AI to ask better questions and surface blind spots
- Turning reflection into a repeatable learning habit
- Experimenting with advanced prompting patterns
- Transforming static knowledge documents into living, usable insight

Why this matters
- Experimentation is an expectation of growth
- Progress comes from failing safely
-Reflection is deeper with an outside eye
-Curiosity is a clue to your next capability

AI amplifies human agency — if you know how to work with it

The biggest barrier to AI adoption isn’t tools.

It’s the lack of confident, skilled people who know how to integrate AI into real thinking and real work.

Come to this hands-on, interactive workshop, and practice using the skills of the future.

Can be 45, 60, or 90 minutes long, depending on the number of interactive games. Best for beginners and intermediate levels of AI literacy.

AI Governance and the Future of Work in New Zealand

AI is reshaping how we work, learn, and lead—and New Zealand stands at a crossroads.

As generative AI moves from novelty to necessity, the question is no longer if it will change work, but how we will govern that change. In this session, Caelan Huntress explores the evolving relationship between automation, regulation, and human creativity—and how Kiwi professionals, businesses, and policymakers can navigate it with foresight and integrity.

You’ll unpack the key tensions shaping the next decade of work: innovation versus oversight, speed versus safety, and productivity versus purpose. Through global case studies and local insights, we’ll explore how New Zealand can build an AI governance model that protects what makes us human while enabling what makes us thrive.

This conversation blends policy with practicality—connecting the dots between ethics and everyday workflows. Whether you’re a business leader, educator, or innovator, you’ll leave with clarity on how to prepare your teams and organisations for an AI-powered economy that’s fair, transparent, and distinctly Kiwi.

You’ll Learn How To:

- Understand AI governance frameworks and how they’re emerging across Aotearoa and the world.
- Identify governance gaps in current organisational practices—and how to close them.
- Balance compliance and creativity, so regulation doesn’t stifle innovation.
- Anticipate the workforce shifts AI will bring to New Zealand’s economy in the next five years.
- Create human-first policies that prioritise equity, transparency, and wellbeing.

Expect:

A fast-paced, thought-provoking session blending storytelling, strategy, and systems thinking. You’ll gain practical tools for shaping ethical AI practices in your organisation—and a vision for how Aotearoa can lead the world in building a future of work that’s both automated and humane.

Can be 45, 60, or 90 minutes long, depending on the number of interactive games. Best for beginners and intermediate levels of AI literacy.