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Professional Development

From curious to confident

Hands-on AI training built for educational facilities professionals. Bring your own AI tool, work through the problems already on your desk, and leave with something you can use the same day.

60+Professionals trained
8hLive instruction
8PDHs earned
See Upcoming Cohorts Read the White Paper

A coworker who is already in the building

The most useful way to think about AI in facilities management is not as software you are going to install and roll out. It is a new coworker who has already been hired, is already sitting in your buildings, and is waiting for someone to give them work.

That framing anchors APPA's white paper, Smart Facilities, AI-Ready Workforce, and it is the through-line of this program. Start where you are. Start small. Trust, but verify. Master the craft, not the tool.

AI for Facilities is APPA's practical answer to a question the membership has been asking loudly: where does this actually fit in a facilities operation, and how do I start without betting the department on it? The program is live, virtual, and built entirely around the work you already do.

Built for facilities professionals, not technologists

Every institution type

Colleges, universities, and K-12 independent schools. The scenarios, sample data, and document types all come from educational facilities work.

Every level and function

Directors, managers, supervisors, and individual contributors across operations, maintenance, energy, custodial, grounds, capital planning, and administration.

Every experience level

Built for people who are curious about AI but unsure where to start. Those with some experience get the structured techniques and the peer learning.

Course 101

AI for Facilities: 101

The foundation course. Four live virtual sessions of two hours each. Sessions 1 through 3 run on three consecutive days and build from basic prompting through operational analysis to power-user technique. The capstone session follows one week later, giving you time to scope and build a real project from your job. Every session is recorded and available within 24 hours.

4 sessions8 hours live8 PDHsSessions recordedCertificate of completionEnrolling by cohort
Session 1Getting Started and Quick Wins: how AI tools work, how to structure a prompt, and what is safe to paste
Session 2Operational Use Cases: contract review, energy scenario modeling, deferred maintenance phasing, trust calibration
Session 3Power User Techniques: prompt chaining, building a reusable template library, and capstone launch
Session 4Capstone Presentations and Graduation, closing with a structured 90-day integration plan

The capstone is the point

It is not a practice exercise. You pick a real task from your actual job, something substantive that would normally take meaningful time, and you complete it using AI. You submit a one-page summary covering what you set out to produce, how you used AI, where you had to intervene or correct it, and the finished deliverable.

That third part is the most valuable. Selected participants present to the cohort in the final session, chosen for variety of use case rather than polish, because an instructive failure teaches the room more than a clean success. Every participant's summary is posted to a shared cohort folder as an ongoing reference library.

What past participants have built

Deferred maintenance funding proposals built from real backlog data
Service contract scopes of work and vendor proposal comparisons
Preventive maintenance schedules and inspection programs
Building condition assessments turned into board-ready capital plans
Custodial reorganization and staffing analyses
Board memos summarizing dense legal and contractual material
Interactive dashboards and work-order analyses

What you take away

✓A completed deliverable for a real task at your institution, not a practice exercise.
✓The AI Starter Kit, ten battle-tested prompt templates for recurring facilities work.
✓A curated prompt library drawn from past cohort participants' actual work.
✓Three or more reusable prompts you built and tested yourself during the program.
✓A Do's and Don'ts cheat sheet covering trust calibration and data privacy.
✓The cohort's shared reference folder, every participant's project summary as an ongoing library.
✓A peer network of facilities professionals at the same point in their AI journey.
✓Certificate of completion for eight hours, plus 8 PDHs at two per session.

Prerequisites: none. You need a computer with internet and a free account on any common AI tool (ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, or Google Gemini). Account setup guidance is sent before the first session. No prework, no readings, no homework.

Registration rates, per seat

Registration tier Rate
Institutional Member / BP Platinum $495
Business Partner Gold $530
Business Partner Silver $560
Business Partner Bronze $595
Non-Member $660

Cohorts are capped to keep sessions hands-on, and seats are released a few at a time. Rates and dates for each cohort are confirmed on its event listing.

More advanced courses are coming. AI for Facilities: 101 is the first course in a growing program. Additional courses that go deeper into applying AI across a facilities operation are in development.
Smart Facilities, AI-Ready Workforce. APPA's white paper on artificial intelligence in educational facilities management, grounded in the first cohorts of this program. A confidence-versus-value framework for choosing a pilot, a stakes-based verification model, and practical guidance on leading the change. Short enough to read in one sitting.
Read the Paper
Questions about AI for Facilities? Email professionaldevelopment@appa.org