UK / USA: Empowering Simply Business to lead with AI Confidence
Summary
LEADING WITH AI CONFIDENCE
Simply Business is one of the UK’s biggest business insurance providers, serving nearly one million small businesses and landlords.
Using the power of tech and data to create the best possible customer experiences, in 2025, the company launched a first-of-its-kind AI-powered insurance advisor in the US – a hyper-personalized, conversational experience that makes the insurance buying process faster, clearer, and more intuitive – while in the UK it offers customer support access 24/7 with the help of an AI-powered chatbot, Cody.
However, Simply Business wanted to ensure a culture of AI innovation extended beyond its engineering teams to the wider organisation.
The executive team signalled a clear intent for all employees to embrace AI by encouraging all employees to dedicate time every week towards AI experimentation and learning. There was a clear desire to bridge the gap for non-technical teams, providing the skills and structured learning required to apply AI in their day-to-day roles.
That’s where Quantum Rise came in: to help supercharge that curiosity into capability, ensuring the wider business could keep pace with the company’s rapid technological advancements with skills development and structured learning support.
OUR PARTNERSHIP
Quantum Rise partnered with Simply Business to design and deliver a series of high-impact learning experiences that would build the practical skills, confidence, and management capability needed to embed AI use in non-technical roles safely and effectively, in pursuit of the best possible outcomes for its customers.
Over the learning campaign, we delivered:
• Three live AI training sessions across both UK and US audiences in a hybrid set up
• A cross-regional AI panel discussion, bringing together diverse perspectives on AI’s potential in the workplace.
Our work perfectly aligned with Simply Business’s internal initiative around AI experimentation — transforming an hour of weekly exploration into a strategic, skills-based learning journey that encouraged employees and managers to use AI responsibly and creatively.
The sessions reinforced Simply Business’s commitment to developing future-ready teams with a clear customer focus, and embedding a culture of safe, human-centred innovation.
THE CHALLENGE
- To build the practical skills, confidence and management capability needed to embed AI use in non-technical roles safely and effectively, in pursuit of the best possible outcomes for its customers.
- To generate confidence and capability in all staff and provide structured learning support to empower non-technical users to develop the necessary mindset and skills to apply AI in their day-to-day roles
OUR APPROACH
We created a blended learning journey under our flagship programme, AI for the Average Joe; an accessible, engaging, and thought-provoking approach designed to demystify AI and inspire confident experimentation.
The programme consisted of three interconnected sessions:
Part 1: Keynote – Winning Hearts and Minds
We kicked off the journey with an energetic, interactive keynote that reframed AI not as a threat, but as an opportunity to evolve.
Participants explored:
- Why people react differently to AI
- How to engage teams emotionally in technological change
- The critical skills needed for the human–machine partnership.
This session sparked reflection and enthusiasm, breaking down barriers and creating psychological safety around AI adoption.
Part 2: Practical Workshop – Maximising Productivity, Creativity and Skills
Next, we rolled up our sleeves for a hands-on, practical workshop. Delegates used a robust prompt framework to explore how Generative AI could enhance creativity, productivity, and problem-solving in their day-to-day roles.
They learned how to:
- Build sustainable AI practices at work
- Ask “killer questions” to quality-check AI output
- Experiment confidently with prompting and iteration.
The session turned curiosity into capability — helping teams identify immediate ways to save time and boost innovation.
Manager Enablement: Supercharging AI in Your Team
Finally, we focused on equipping people leaders to lead the AI conversation.
Managers explored their mindset, readiness, and responsibility for guiding AI use within their teams, supported by live coaching scenarios and tailored action plans.
Outcomes included:
- Stronger confidence in leading AI adoption
- Clarity on guardrails and ethical considerations
- Practical ideas to embed AI use safely across teams
LEADING WITH AI CONFIDENCE: THE IMPACT
The programme reached employees across both the UK and the US, reinforcing a shared culture of innovation and experimentation.
Feedback highlighted that participants left with:
- Greater confidence using AI tools in everyday work
- Clearer understanding of where AI adds value and where it doesn’t
- Renewed curiosity to explore AI responsibly and creatively.
Managers valued the focus on practical tools and skills to build psychological safety and ethical leadership, ensuring their teams could innovate without fear or overwhelm.
BUILD AI CONFIDENCE, LITERACY AND CAPABILITY ACROSS EVERY LEVEL OF YOUR ORGANISATION
Forward-thinking organisations are embracing the benefits AI brings to their people and performance and enabling their teams to use it confidently.
They’re enabling behaviours and digital ethics, supporting managers to coach the required behaviours, and providing the experience for teams to build the underpinning skills.
But these are not just workplace skills, they are human distinctive skills, that we will be using every day, in our personal and professional lives.
We need a combination of people, infrastructure and AI to be successful.
THE QUANTUM RISE AI ACADEMY
From AI awareness to applied skills, our AI Academy provides multiple pathways to your organisation’s AI maturity.
Our forward-thinking programmes provide vision and expert training, cost-effective off the shelf solutions for whole functions and cross-organisational learning, as well as bespoke training for people professionals across HR, L&D and Education, Recruitment and Talent Acquisition.
We also offer wider learning pathways – dedicated development sessions for both managers and teams. These workshops cover key skills and behaviours that support the effective adoption of AI, including critical thinking, decision making, learning agility, manager enablement, ethical intelligence, and more.
Read more on this case study here: https://quantumrise.co.uk/case-studies/simply-business/
