The Blueprint: An AI-First Service Design Course for Financial Services Professionals
Online (live)
Part Time Course
12 Weeks
Twice a week, 6:00PM - 8:00PM (London)
Most AI transformation programmes teach you to insert AI into what already exists. This one starts from scratch.
The Blueprint is a 12-week online programme in AI-first service design for financial services professionals - combining service design, product thinking, data literacy and responsible AI into a single, applied experience. You leave with a real proposition, built and pitched to a real client.
From £2,950.00 - payment plans available.
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The Blueprint
Join our next information session.
online via zoom
Monday 21st September, 2026 - Wednesday 9th December, 2026
• Monday & Wednesday evenings
• 6:00pm-8:00pm (London time)
• 22 sessions
• Delivered Live on Zoom
Who's this for?
For mid-career professionals in financial services who want to lead AI-driven change, not just survive it. Strategy, transformation, product, operations, and design teams.
How long is it?
12 weeks part-time. 22 sessions of live online learning, twice a week. Two workshop sessions built in for peer review and pitch preparation.
On completion
You will have designed, prototyped and pitched a zero-based AI-first service proposition — applied to a real startup brief, presented to the founder and a guest panel.
Experience Haus has worked with leading organisations to help redesign legacy workflows.
EXPLORE THIS COURSE
01
Learn from industry insiders.
Every session of The Blueprint is taught by practitioners who do this work in the real world. Our instructors have worked inside and alongside financial services organisations bringing live experience of AI transformation, service design, product strategy and responsible AI to every session.
02
A real brief. A real client. A real pitch.
From day one your team works on a live brief from an early-stage startup, sourced before the cohort begins. Every method you learn, from journey mapping, AI agent design, data architecture, guardrails and prototyping, is applied to that brief the same week. The course ends with you pitching your full proposition directly to the founder who wrote it.
03
Cohort capped at 12 students
Small cohort sizes mean instructors can spend real time with each team, reviewing work in depth, challenging assumptions, and giving feedback that only comes from people who have done this inside real organisations at senior level. You are not a number in a cohort of 200.
Leave With Something Built. Not Just Something Learned.
Course Overview
This is not a lecture series. Every session connects directly to a real startup brief that your team receives on day one. The methods you learn in session – journey mapping, AI agent design, data architecture, guardrails, prototyping – are applied to that brief the same week. By the time you reach the final presentation, you have built something real, tested it with real users, and defended it in front of the client who wrote the brief.
The programme is built around the Experience Haus Five I Framework: Intent, Intelligence, Integrity, Interface, and Interaction. These five dimensions structure everything you learn and everything you build.
Why Is It Relevant
Financial services is at an inflection point. The organisations that will lead the next decade are not the ones that bolt AI onto existing workflows – they are the ones that redesign those workflows from the ground up. Most professionals in the sector understand this is happening. Very few have the method to do something about it.
The Blueprint gives you that method. Not in theory, but truly applied to a real brief, inside a real timeline, with real constraints. You leave with a framework you can use immediately, in the organisation you are already working in.
Real Life Project
On day one your team receives a live brief from an early-stage startup, sourced by the Experience Haus team before the cohort begins. Every method you encounter in session is applied to that brief the same week, so by Week 12 you have not just learned a process, you have used it to build something real.
The course ends with each team presenting their full proposition – problem framing, service design, AI architecture, data layer, prototype and business case – directly to the startup founder and a guest panel. The brief has been real from day one. The pitch is too.
Teamwork
You will work in small teams of three to four people throughout the programme. This is deliberate. AI-first service redesign is not a solo discipline – it requires the kind of collaborative thinking that only happens when people with different perspectives are working toward a shared outcome under real pressure.
Teams are formed in the first session and stay together for all twelve weeks. The dynamics you navigate — disagreement, division of labour, competing ideas, tight deadlines — are the same ones you will face when you take this method back into your organisation.
Learning From Others
The cohort is capped at 12 participants. That is not a constraint, it is a design decision. Small cohorts mean every team gets meaningful time with the instructors, and every participant gets to learn from what every other team is building.
Guest practitioners join specific sessions throughout the programme, bringing live experience from financial services, AI product design, responsible AI and venture. The perspectives you encounter in the room reflect the full complexity of the work, not a single point of view.
Weekly Commitment
Classes are held live online, twice a week, with cohort sizes capped at 12 participants. Sessions run approximately two hours each.
In addition to two live sessions per week, expect to spend three to five hours on team project work, such as ongoing research, blueprinting, AI rapid prototyping, and iteration. The work outside sessions is where the learning compounds.
The programme is designed for professionals already working in financial services. You bring the sector knowledge. We bring the method.
Course Syllabus: Week by Week Overview.
Each week combines a taught session with direct application to your team's live brief. You will leave every session with something built, not just something learned.
PRE course Work
- Complete team profile and brief onboarding
- Introductory reading: zero-based design thinking
- Join the cohort Slack community
- Review the Five I Framework primer
week
01
The Brief & The Landscape
The mindset shift from gap-filling to zero-based design. You receive the real startup brief and form your team.
- Introduction to the Five I Framework
- Zero-based vs process-optimisation thinking
- Why financial services workflows are historical compromises
- Competitive mapping and trend analysis
- Landscape research on the brief
Week
02
Understanding Users
How to conduct meaningful research in financial services — and turn raw data into sharp insight.
- Why assumptions are the enemy of good design
- Planning user research with limited time
- Interview design and ethical research in regulated industries
- Live interview practice
- Affinity mapping and insight synthesis
Week
03
Defining the Problem
The most important step most teams rush past — writing the right design challenge.
- Jobs-to-be-Done: functional, emotional and social jobs
- Why most financial services products solve the wrong job
- Problem framing techniques
- How Might We methodology
- Peer critique and problem statement refinement
Week
04
Workshop 1: Catch-Up & Peer Review
A structured open studio – consolidation, peer feedback, and space to catch up before the design phase begins.
- Teams share landscape research and user insights
- Facilitated peer critique across the cohort
- Problem statement refinement
- Brief clarification before Week 5
Week
05
Service Design Fundamentals
How to map what actually happens in a service — not what the organisation thinks happens.
- Current-state journey mapping
- The difference between journey maps and service blueprints
- Frontstage, backstage, and support processes
- Identifying the moments that matter
- Handoffs that break trust and how to spot them
Week
06
AI-First Design
The mindset shift at the heart of the programme — designing workflows where AI is a participant, not a bolt-on.
- AI agents as first-class participants
- Agent roles, decision boundaries, and responsibilities
- Human-in-the-loop architecture
- Zero-based future-state mapping
- Teams produce their first future-state blueprint
Week
07
Data, Guardrails & Trust
Data is not just an input — it is a design decision. This week covers the Integrity layer of every AI-first service.
- Data as a design material
- What data an AI-first service needs and where it comes from
- Data flows and dependencies in financial services
- Guardrails: what the system should never do
- Regulatory landscape and compliance considerations in financial services
Week
08
Product & Proposition
How a redesigned service becomes a product with a defensible business model.
- From service blueprint to product proposition
- Value proposition design
- Pricing logic and revenue models in financial services
- What makes a proposition defensible — features vs moats
- Commercial stress-testing: live critique of team propositions
Week
09
Prototyping & Testing
Low-fidelity, high-learning — building something testable in hours, not weeks.
- What a prototype is actually for
- Prototyping approaches for service and AI-first products
- Designing a test that tells you something useful
- Running a user test session without leading the participant
- Turning test findings into product decisions
Week
10
Iteration & Validation
How to make decisions under uncertainty — and know when you have learned enough to move.
- Running useful test sessions
- Acting on findings vs setting them aside
- Assessing commercial, technical and user viability
- Finalising the proposition and locking the blueprint
- Structuring the pitch narrative
Week
11
Workshop 2: Storytelling Clinic & Pitch Prep
A full structured dry run — one week before the final, with a guest panellist in the room.
- Full pitch rehearsal for each team
- Structured feedback on narrative clarity
- Commercial credibility review
- How the Five I Framework comes through in the story
- Specific refinement list per team
Week
12
Final Presentations
The brief has been real from day one. This is the moment it becomes consequential.
- Each team presents the full proposition to the founder and guest panel
- Problem framing, service design, AI layer, data and guardrails, prototype, business case
- Structured panel feedback
- Cohort reflection
- Individual feedback
- Where to take this work next – inside your organisation or beyond
POST course Support
- Alumni network access
- Office hours
- Peer cohort community (ongoing)
- Experience Haus Insights and events
Taught by People Who Do This Work.
Meet The Course Leaders.
The Blueprint is taught by a team of experienced practitioners – designers, product leaders, AI specialists and responsible AI experts who work inside and alongside financial services organisations. They bring real context, real constraints and real examples to every session.
Guest specialists join throughout the programme, covering areas including AI product design, data architecture, regulatory compliance and venture, so the perspectives you encounter reflect the full complexity of the work to be done.
Amit Patel
Founder & Principal, Experience Haus
Spends his time running capability building programmes for the likes of BNY, Hiscox, DTCC, and Deloitte Digital. With nearly two decade sof experience and close to 4,000 programme graduates, he is guest faculty at London Business School, NYU, and Oslo Met, and a recognised speaker on AI, design thinking, and organisational capability. His work is anchored in the concept of unlearning, helping leaders build the adaptive mindsets required in an AI-era economy.
Nicole Perry
Director of Delivery, Natwest Boxed
Nicole Perry is Director of Delivery at NatWest Boxed and a Product Consultant and Coach at Experience Haus, bringing hands-on experience building and leading product functions across fintech and financial services. Her work spans product strategy, research, and delivery, with a particular focus on helping teams build the clarity and rigour needed to move from insight to impact.
Giuseppe Burdo
Senior AI Product Consultant
Giuseppe is a Senior Product Designer at OVO Energy and an Instructor at Experience Haus, where he leads the Design with AI course for both online and business training audiences. He brings practitioner-level experience across product and interaction design, including Google Health. His teaching style is grounded in real-world process, adaptable critique, and a genuine commitment to helping people transition into and grow within the design profession.
THE BLUEPRINT: AI-FIRST SERVICE DESIGN COURSE FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES
Course Dates and Fees.
£ 2,950.00 (inc. VAT)
Best Value: Pay in Full & Save
Reserve your space today with one upfront payment and save 10% compared to the Pay In Instalments option.
This course runs live via Zoom and takes place between 6:00pm – 8:00pm (London,UK time), two evenings a week, on Monday and Wednesday evenings.
If your company will be paying for your enrolment, please email us learn@experiencehaus.com to arrange an invoice.
£ 3,250.00 (inc. VAT)
Spread the cost over the duration of your course
The total cost of paying in instalments is £3,250.00
Simply pay a deposit of £325.00 to secure your space and then a further 3x £975.00 payments will be taken via direct debit over the duration of your course.
This course runs live via Zoom and takes place between 6:00pm – 8:00pm (London,UK time), two evenings a week, on Monday and Wednesday evenings.
If you have any financial concerns please contact enrol@experiencehaus.com to discuss different payment options.
Have More Questions? We Have the Answers.
The Blueprint teaches AI-first service and workflow redesign, starting from the desired outcome, not the existing process. You will learn to design services where AI agents are first-class participants, apply that method to a real startup brief, and present a board-ready proposition at the end of the programme.
Mid-career professionals already working in financial services – strategy, transformation, operations, product and senior management roles. No design or technical background required. You bring the sector knowledge. We bring the method.
No. The programme is designed to be accessible to people with no prior design or technical experience. If you understand how financial services organisations work, you have everything you need to start.
Expect 3–5 hours per week on team and project homework – research, blueprinting, prototyping and iteration. The live sessions are 2 hours each, twice a week. The work between sessions is where the method becomes instinct.
Yes. Every cohort receives a real brief from a live startup, sourced by Amit before the cohort begins. The course ends with teams pitching their proposition directly to the startup founder.
Pay in full (best value) or pay in instalments. Contact learn@experiencehaus.com for instalment options.
There is no application process, however if you are unsure about your suitability, please submit a callback request using the form on this page. A member of the team will be in touch within 48 hours to discuss fit, dates and next steps.
Yes. Participants who complete The Blueprint receive an Experience Haus certificate of completion.
Both. Individuals can enrol directly. Organisations looking to put a team through the programme should contact us to discuss cohort or in-house options.
The programme is designed around financial services contexts, case studies and workflows. Professionals from adjacent sectors — professional services, healthcare administration, insurance, public sector — will find it highly applicable. Contact us if you are unsure whether it is right for you.
Courses can be taken with standard Windows PC or Apple hardware. The only programs that you will almost definitely need to use at some stage are Figma, FigJam and Zoom. We will provide the rapid prototyping tool Lovable for you to use on the course as well.
Purchases are non-refundable, except at the discretion of Experience Haus Ltd. Typically, cancellations or refund requests received 14 days prior to the start of a course or workshop will be honoured. However, due to the complex nature of the service being provided this cannot be guaranteed, and will be assessed on a case-by-case basis. This policy does not include deposits, all of which are non-refundable.
Provided you give us enough notice, we are happy for you to change cohorts once you’ve booked.
No – the briefs are selected to help you apply your learnings in the best way and create a great portfolio piece. We cannot change the brief that has been selected for you as we want this to be as real life as possible, where you don’t always choose what you work on and would need to deliver the project regardless of personal preference.