The cohort
The guide teaches you the framework. The cohort is where you build with it live: 10 classes, open Q&A and hands-on time after each one, direct feedback on your own work, and certification on completion. $697.
Join the live cohort →- Self-paced
- Non-technical
- 90-day path
Your first AI team, set up at your own pace.
Eleven chapters, a 90-day path, and no code. The same system I use to run my businesses.
We teach it hands-on in Claude, since right now it's the fastest way in, but the underlying skills transfer to any agentic AI system you end up using.
Get the guide for $57 →
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- 11Chapters
- 90Day path
- 0Coding required
- ∞Lifetime updates
Who it's for
Who this guide is for
AI agents are already doing execution work across every field. Someone has to set the goals, audit the outputs, and own the results. This guide teaches you to be that person, in whatever field you're in.
The business owner doing it all
The woman with an idea
The professional getting ready to leave
Also useful if you want to bring AI into your current job.
Wrong guide if
You want to build AI systems from scratch. This isn't a coding course. It's for the professional who directs agents, not the engineer who wires them up. If that's you, try the vibe coding calls in the Agent OR — The Operator Room instead. If you want to be the person in your organization who knows how to run what gets built, keep reading.
A Note on Claude
This guide is built hands-on in Claude because it's currently the most accessible way to actually learn this, not because the framework only works there. The mental model, the prompting structure, the connector pattern, the automation logic: all of it applies the same way in ChatGPT, Gemini, or whatever your organization already runs. You're learning the architecture. Claude is just where we teach it.
What's inside
Eleven chapters, no filler
Set Up Your AI Foundation
Thirty minutes of setup (a system prompt, your first project, your prompt library) that changes how everything after this works, no matter which AI you're running it on.
Prompt Engineering That Actually Works
One structure (Role → Context → Task → Constraints → Format), five real prompts, and the habit that fixes most bad outputs.
Connect Your AI to Your Tools
Giving it hands: email, drive, chat; the connector pattern, whichever platform you're on.
The Four Components + Your First Live Connector
The mental model that ties it together, then your first connector that lets your AI actually act, not just read.
Build Your First Automation
Everything so far, wired into one real working system: manual first, automated second.
Where AI Shows Up In Your Workday
Browser, documents, live outputs, and multi-step work: four contexts, and when to reach for each.
From Idea to Live Website, No Code
Using Claude Code as the example: how a plain-language request becomes something live on the internet.
Train It Once: Build a Skill
Reusable instructions so you stop re-explaining the job every time.
Why Agents Fail (and How to Fix It)
A fast, tool-agnostic diagnostic for when something goes wrong.
Your Practice Path
A self-paced, week-by-week plan through everything above.
The Human in the Loop
What stays yours, no matter how good the tools get.
Hands-on deliverables
What you'll actually build
A working system prompt
A running prompt library
One live connector
One working automation-ready connector action
One real automation with a review step
One live no-code website edit
One custom Skill
A working failure-diagnostic habit
Christina DillsFounder & CEO, Smart Edge Technologies
Written by
Someone who built the system
Christina Dills has been in tech since 2004. She spent 13 years at Microsoft, right as SaaS was being born, launching partner programs that helped businesses scale. In 2018 she founded Smart Edge Technologies, an Anthropic implementation partner serving small and mid-sized businesses and nonprofits across the U.S. and Latin America.
She doesn't write about AI from the outside. She took an AI-native product from launch to revenue positive in 3 months, with 2 more products heading to market now. The Agent Operator framework came directly from her own deployments: what worked, what failed, and what every non-technical professional needed to understand to stay in control.
"I've watched AI change how entire departments work. The people who thrived weren't the ones with the most tenure; they were the ones who understood how to work with the systems. That's what this guide teaches."
She builds AI-native products, including SortIQ, SmartPath and MyDeed.ai. She won the Innovation Challenge (sponsored by Synapse, Florida Funders and Goodwill), received the SBDC Best Export Small Business Award (2022), and holds AI certifications from Anthropic, Harvard and Columbia, plus IBM data courses.
- Anthropic implementation partner for Claude for Business
- Anthropic · AI Fluency for Small Businesses · AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations · Claude 101 · Claude Code 101 · Claude Cowork · 2026
- Harvard Data Science Review · Agentic AI: Contextualized and Applied · 2025
- Columbia University · Artificial Intelligence: Machine Learning & Robotics · 2018
- IBM courses · Data Science Foundations · Big Data Foundations · Data Privacy Fundamentals · 2019
- Curtin University · Internet of Things MicroMasters Program · 2017
- 13 years at Microsoft focused on the OEM channel and Latin America
- SBDC Best Export Small Business Award (2022)
- Winner, Innovation Challenge (sponsored by Synapse, Florida Funders and Goodwill)
In their words
What people say
"I built a capability one-pager for my business and got real UI/UX feedback using Claude's Chrome extension. Genuinely useful, immediate results. But the bigger shift was in how I think about Claude: I went from treating it like a single thinking partner to running it like three skilled employees, each with their own output to leverage."
"I've been deep in the AI space for about a year, using it to transform how I work and helping others see its real operational value. But this program cracked something open for me. It showed me how to take everything I'd been doing and actually wire it into the functioning of my business, not just as a tool I use, but as the engine that runs it. That's a completely different level."
"Before this program I was building with Claude in ways that worked, but self-taught, without a shared vocabulary for what I was doing. This cohort gave me a framework to name it, and confirmed that the most important design decision in AI adoption isn't which model you choose, it's how you structure the relationship between human judgment and the system."
Start when you're ready
Get the guide.
This guide gives you the same framework taught in the live cohort: the four components, the connector pattern, and a hands-on path to operational fluency, worked through at your own pace.
30-day money-back guarantee
If you read it and don't feel equipped to direct AI agents in your role, email us for a full refund. No questions asked.
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The Agent Operator Guide
$57
- Set up your AI foundation the right way from day one
- Connect it to the tools you already use, and give it the ability to act, not just answer
- Your first real automation, built and running
- A no-code walkthrough for shipping something live on the internet
- Lifetime access, plus free updates as the framework evolves
Secure checkout. PDF sent to your email right after you pay. 30-day money-back guarantee.
Questions? hello@agentoperator.co
Not ready to commit? The free Operator Mindset Guide is the thinking behind this one: 15 principles in five pages.
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The community
The Agent Operator Circle is free and open to anyone, no cohort needed.
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