You already know you should be using this.
You have tried ChatGPT. You got something genuinely impressive once, showed someone, and then quietly went back to doing it yourself.
That is not a failure of effort, and it is not because you are not technical enough. It is because a chatbot that knows nothing about your clients, your prices, your suppliers or your systems is a party trick. It cannot do your work, because it has never been told what your work is.
The gap is not knowledge. There is more free AI training in Australia right now than anyone could get through. The gap is that nobody has sat down with your business, opened your systems, and built the thing with you.
That is the entire reason ai_tribe exists. It starts with a brain, and you build that one yourself.
Start here: the kit.
A business brain on your own Mac, built in a weekend. A folder Claude reads, rules it obeys, a memory that keeps itself current, and skills that do real jobs against it. It is the setup we run our own businesses on, and it is the prerequisite for camp.
- A folder Claude reads and keeps current
- A constitution Claude obeys, with rules you can test on your own screen
- A memory that updates itself from what you drop in, with every number carrying a source and a date
- Answers about your business, each with the page it came from
- A private backup that saves itself, and a way to share the brain with your team
- A maintenance ledger, so you know what it costs and what would break it
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What a business brain is
Three checks done before module 1: a Mac, a paid Claude plan, and where your Documents folder lives
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Set up the desk
The starter brain open in Obsidian, Claude pointed at it
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The shoebox
05-Inbox/ full: what the business has already written, in one place
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The interview
Your own folder tree and a filled-in CLAUDE.md
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Memory
Your first real pages, and the first Weekly Brain Review run
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Back it up and share it
A private repository with autosync running, and a teammate in if you have one
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The constitution, properly
A constitution with rules you can check
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Ask it things
The brain answering real questions about your business, with sources
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The inbox pack
The brain acting on a live system: your inbox, with nothing sent without you
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Keep it alive
Your own maintenance ledger, filed in the brain
$149 AUD, one-off. It comes off a camp seat.
Start with the kitEverything in it, and where a self-build stops, is on the kit page. Not ready to buy? Do the free exercise first.
When it needs hands: Build Camp.
A small room in Brisbane. Screens open, your own business on them. You are not being lectured at. You are building, and we are next to you while you do it.
You arrive with a brain. The kit is the prerequisite, so the two days go on giving it hands, not on setting up folders. The $149 comes off your seat.
Two days, and a seat is one person. Most AI training in Brisbane runs two to four hours, or a single day for a whole team with one presenter at the front. That is enough time to be shown what is possible. It is not enough time to get something working inside your business, which is why we do not sell it that way. You are not buying a room. You are buying the two days it actually takes.
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Day one
Work out what to hand over
We start with no AI at all. We map where your week actually goes and find the five jobs worth handing to something else. By the end of the day you have an assistant that knows your business: what you sell, who you sell it to, how you talk, what you never do.
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Day two
Give it hands
This is where it stops being a chatbot. You connect it to something real in your business and watch it do a job end to end. Then we walk through the honest part: what it must never touch, how you keep it from doing something expensive, and what it takes to keep it running.
Nobody leaves without something that works. That is the whole promise, and it is the only one we make.
We didn’t read about this. We run on it.
Shadowtek is a web and hosting business in Brisbane. It is run day to day by an assistant we built ourselves.
It reads and triages the inbox. It drafts client replies. It watches the servers and tells us before a client notices. It reconciles billing, writes the monthly client reports, and flags the invoice nobody chased.
Behind it sits a system we wrote and maintain:
- 474
- tools it can use
- 34
- business systems connected
- Every day
- in a real business, not a demo
Most people teaching AI right now learnt it recently, from the same videos you could watch tonight. We are showing you a system that has been running a real company through real problems, including the ones that went wrong.
And we will show you those too. The integration that silently stopped working every seven days. The thing that looked fine on the front end and was broken behind it. You will not get that from a highlight reel, and it is the part that actually saves you money.
Who is in the room
ai_tribe is run by the two of us, and we are both in the room for both days.
Steve built the Shadowtek assistant you just read about, and maintains the 474 tools behind it. He is the one next to you on day two when it has to touch your real systems.
Adam runs Lead Laundry, a Brisbane lead generation business. He is the reason the room is full of businesses we can actually help, and he has sat exactly where you are sitting.
What you walk out with on day two
- An assistant that knows your business, in your own account, that you own outright
- At least one real job it can do end to end, running against your actual systems
- The boundaries set, so it cannot do anything expensive without asking you
- A written list of what it costs to keep running and what will break first
- Thirty days of support afterwards, email any time plus two scheduled calls
- Three months in the tribe, so you are not on your own with it
Who this is for, and who it is not
This is for you if
- You own or run the business, and you can decide things without asking anyone
- You have between one and fifty people
- There is work in your week that repeats, and you are sick of doing it
- You are willing to sit at a keyboard for two days and build something
This is not for you if
- You want someone to do the whole thing for you without you involved. That is a fair thing to want, and it is a different conversation we are happy to have. It is not this.
- You want a certificate or a qualification. We do not issue one.
- You want to set it up once and never look at it again. Nothing that touches a live business works that way, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Not ready for two days in a room? The kit is where you start, and it is built to be finished on your own.
Whatever you build, the hard part is keeping it alive.
Things break. An integration stops working. Something changes and you cannot work out why. Six weeks later you want it to do something new and you have forgotten how you built the first bit.
That is what the tribe is for. A group of Australian business owners at the same stage, and a monthly clinic where you bring the thing that is not working and we look at it together.
Every camp attendee gets three months included, and kit buyers can join when they are ready. After that it is optional, and plenty of people carry on.
The ladder, and what each rung costs
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Start here
$149, one-off
The kit
A business brain on your own Mac, built in a weekend. Self-paced, complete on its own.
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Then
$5,950 per seat, founding
Build Camp
Two days in Brisbane. The brain gets hands. The kit price comes off your seat.
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After
Monthly, optional
The tribe
The monthly clinic, so it stays alive. Three months included with a seat.
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Or
By quote
Done for you
We build it and keep it running. A conversation, not a page.
A camp seat
$5,950
per seat, founding cohort. Indicative.
A seat covers, in full:
- The two days in the room, six to ten seats, us at your screen
- The assistant itself, built in your own account, yours outright
- Thirty days of support afterwards: email any time plus two scheduled calls
- Three months in the tribe, with the monthly clinic
Support is bounded like that on purpose, so you know exactly what you are getting and we can actually deliver it.
The guarantee. If you reach the end of day two without a working assistant, we do not shrug and wish you luck. We keep working with you until it runs. If we cannot get you there, we refund your seat in full. We can make that promise because the room is six to ten people, and we do not sell a seat we do not believe we can deliver.
You can pay less. There is AI training in Brisbane from a few hundred dollars, and we would genuinely rather you took the free government courses than paid anyone badly. So here is what the difference actually buys, plainly:
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Two days, not two hours.
Nothing real gets connected to a live business in an afternoon. We have tried.
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A seat, not a room.
Six to ten people means we are at your screen, in your systems, on your problem. Not presenting to a team.
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Thirty days after, and three months in the tribe.
Email any time plus two scheduled calls, then the monthly clinic. It breaks about a week in. That is when you need someone, and that is when everyone else has moved on.
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We have already done it.
Not a slide about what is possible. A working agency, 474 tools, 34 systems, running today.
We are being straight with you: this is the first cohort. There is no photo of a full room and no testimonial page yet, because it has not run. The founding rate reflects that, and we ask founding members for honest feedback and permission to tell their story. It will not be this price again.
We are also checking whether Queensland small business AI adoption funding can cover part of it. If it can, waitlist members hear first.
Nothing is payable for camp now. Registering your interest costs you nothing and commits you to nothing.
Questions
Do I need to be technical?
No. If you can use email and a web browser you have enough. The people who get the most out of this are usually the ones who know their business best, not the ones who know computers best.
Is this a course?
No, and we are picky about the word. A course teaches you about something. The kit leaves you with a working brain on your own Mac, and camp leaves you with a working assistant connected to your business. If you get to the end of either with nothing running, we have failed.
Do I need the kit before camp?
Yes. You arrive at camp with a brain already built, so the two days go on giving it hands rather than setting up folders. The $149 comes off your seat.
There are free government AI courses. Why would I pay for this?
Take them. Genuinely, they are worth doing and they cost nothing. They will teach you what AI is and what it can do in general. What they will not do is sit next to you while you connect one to your booking system, and be there in six weeks when it stops working. That is the difference between learning about it and having one.
I have been quoted a lot less by someone else. Why the difference?
Because it is a different thing, and we would rather say so than pretend the prices are comparable. Most AI training here is two to four hours, or one day for a whole team with a presenter at the front. Ours is two days, a seat is one person, and we are at your screen working on your systems. Then there is thirty days of support afterwards, email any time plus two scheduled calls, and three months in the tribe, because it will break about a week in. If what you want is a good overview of what AI can do, the cheaper options are genuinely fine and the free government courses are better value again. If you want to walk out with something running in your business, that takes the two days.
Can I just do the kit and skip the camp?
Yes, and we will be pleased for you. The kit is complete on its own: ten modules, every one ending with something that works, and it says plainly where a self-build stops. Camp is for when the brain has to touch your real systems and you want someone next to you who has done it a hundred times.
Is my business data safe?
You build in your own account. Your data stays yours, we never take custody of it, and nothing you build depends on us. Day two covers this properly: what your assistant can see, what it can change, and what it has to ask you before doing. Getting that boundary right is most of the job, and it is the part people skip.
Is there a guarantee?
Yes. You leave day two with a working assistant, or we keep working with you until you have one. If we cannot get you there, we refund the seat in full. It is the same promise made at the top of the page, in writing.
What if I get stuck afterwards?
Thirty days of support is included, and three months in the tribe with the monthly clinic. Bring the broken thing, we will look at it with you.
Where and when?
Brisbane first. Dates are set with the first cohort so we can suit the people actually coming. Waitlist members choose from the options before anyone else.
How many people?
Six to ten. It does not work bigger, because the whole point is that someone is next to you when you are stuck.
Register your interest
Tell us a bit about your business. We will let you know the dates and the final cost before you decide anything.