AI Mission Ready
Cohort 2 · For Veterans, Spouses & Caregivers · By Veterans
Four weeks. Ten daily lessons you work through on your own time, a Fire Team of three to five with an assigned coach, and a Demo Day where you present what you built. Every Fellow builds at least three working AI assistants and keeps them.
Anchored in the U.S. Department of Labor’s AI Literacy Framework.
Delivered from Leesburg, Virginia, in partnership with Strategy@Work and LeadWithAI.
The first cohort delivered.
12/13
Completers shipped a working AI workflow at Demo Day
5
Service branches represented, Vietnam to Post-9/11
100%
Would recommend the program to other veterans
90%
Want to return as AI coaches for future cohorts
If anyone can lead the way with AI, it's veterans.
Mika Cross Lead Program Advisor, AI Mission Ready · U.S. Army Veteran
You are not doing this alone.
You will be part of a Fire Team. In the military, you go through the confidence course as a team, never alone, because it is built so no one clears it by themselves. AI Mission Ready is the same. Your Fire Team is the small group that gets you through.
Three to five people, one assigned coach, 45 minutes a week. Your team sets its own meeting time. It is where you work through what is stuck, show what you built before it is finished, and get a straight answer from someone who has done it. Every team carries its own name and badge, and it stays yours for the whole four weeks.
The Four Weeks
Ten curriculum days, about 30 minutes each, self-paced. Three cohort calls, four Fire Team sessions, two half-days in Leesburg. Plan on about five hours a week including calls.
Kickoff and Demo Day are held in person in Leesburg. Fire Teams form in that room and Demo Day lands differently when you are in it. Remote is possible and some Fellows will need it. The program works either way.
Kickoff · Friday 18 September · 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM · Leesburg Junction
- In person at Leesburg Junction, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM
- Meet your cohort, choose your track, and join your Fire Team
- Leave with your platform access, your team, and a clear target
Week 1 · 21–25 September Use AI like a top 1% operator.
- Monday · Selecting LLMs and advanced models
- Tuesday · SuperPrompting and prompt engineering
- Wednesday · Multimodal AI: artifacts, voice, and video
- Thursday · Integrating AI into your work — cohort call, 5:00 PM ET Live
- Friday · From prompts to reusable assistants
Fire Team weekly, Tuesday or Wednesday · 45 min with your coach
Week 2 · 28 September–2 October Build your AI team.
- Monday · Build your insight assistant
- Tuesday · Build your research assistant
- Wednesday · Build your productivity assistant
- Thursday · Build your creative assistant — cohort call, 5:00 PM ET Live
- Friday · Vibe coding and introduction to agentic AI
Fire Team weekly, Tuesday or Wednesday · 45 min with your coach
Week 3 · 5–9 October Build week with coaching.
- No new content · finish, fix, and extend your assistants with Fire Team support
- Fire Team session · 45 min with your coach. Troubleshoot, go deeper, get unstuck.
- Thursday · cohort call, 5:00 PM ET: progress check and open Q&A Live
Week 4 · 12–15 October Build, rehearse, and demo.
- Monday through Thursday · polish your best assistants, rehearse your demo. Minimum 3x working tools.
- Fire Team session · final coaching: dry run and feedback before Demo Day
- Friday · Demo Day: present your best assistant. In person or online. Required. Live
Demo Day · Friday 16 October · Leesburg
- Participation required, in person or online
- Held in person in Leesburg. Remote presentation is available for Fellows who need it.
- Present one working assistant to the cohort and invited guests
- What it does, how you built it, and what changed
- You keep everything you built
Lexi personalizes all exercises before Day 1. Cohort calls Thursdays at 5:00 PM ET. Fire Team sessions weekly, Tuesday or Wednesday.
Curriculum by Lead with AI. Delivered by Oath & Oak faculty with Strategy@Work.
How the room works.
Opt-In Sharing
Pass is always allowed. No one is put on the spot.
No Rank in the Room
Service history is respected but creates no hierarchy.
Progress Over Perfection
The goal is forward movement, not flawless output.
Confidentiality + Respect
What participants share in the room stays in the room.
AI Safety Baseline
No sensitive personal, financial, or work-restricted information enters AI tools.
In their own words.
I started thinking about this 10 years ago. ... Thanks to this course, a 10-year thing actually happened.
Trish Martinelli
Cohort 1 · Defense Entrepreneurs Forum
It has taken me up to four or five hours a week just to write a really good letter. ... Two minutes later, I have something that I could never do.
Pat Cassidy
Cohort 1
I just thought I was going to come here and learn AI. ... It's teaching me that I can learn at a higher speed with AI.
Akinwande “AO” Oshodi
Cohort 1
I used to use ChatGPT like a Google search on steroids. ... Now everything is more intentional.
Abraham Avila
Cohort 1 · Casa de Avila's
I learned a lot of things faster than I thought I would. It was more intuitive than I thought it might be and I had a lot of fun.
Heather Boyd
Cohort 1
The best thing that we can do is provide our veterans with more skills to be successful.
Kris Saling
Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.) · Founding Faculty and AI Coach
Cohort 2 applications are closed.
Four weeks, starting Friday 18 September. The window to apply for Cohort 2 has passed. Every seat is awarded as an Oath & Oak Fellowship, valued at $2,500, underwritten by sponsors. You are not paying for a seat. The only cost is one AI subscription, about $20 a month, and you can tell us on the waitlist form if that is a barrier.