The obvious problem with this page
The obvious problem with this page is that I’m on it. I train communications teams to use AI, so a page called “AI training for communications teams” written by me is, on the face of it, marketing.
Here is why it exists anyway. Comms is the most heavily served corner of the AI training market and the least well served. There are dozens of “AI in PR” courses. Almost all of them are three hours of what AI is, delivered to a Zoom grid, by someone explaining large language models to people who write for a living. The people booking them already know what ChatGPT is. What they do not know is how to get a press office of six to stop re-typing the same holding statement, or how to make a drafting tool sound like the organisation rather than like a press release generator.
So here is how I’ve handled that. Every price below came off the provider’s own site in August 2026. Where a provider doesn’t publish a price, I’ve written “not published” rather than guessing. Everyone gets the same columns in the comparison table, including me. And there’s a section at the bottom on when one of the others is the better buy. It’s specific, and I mean it.
Check any of it. That’s the point. Prices move, so if you’re reading this months later, check them again.
How I picked
Does the training touch your actual work?
The test is whether one thing your team does every week is different seven days later. Not whether they can define a large language model. A media list, a briefing note, a monitoring summary, a first draft in your house voice: pick one and see if it changed.
Do they publish a price?
This matters more in comms than anywhere else, because comms training is often sold through the same relationship channels as membership and events. If a provider will not say what it costs until you have had a discovery call, you are in a sales process, not a training programme.
Is it built on your press office or on a slide deck?
There is a real difference between “here is what AI can do for communications” and “here is what happens when we point this at your inbox, your monitoring feed and your last crisis”. Only the second one survives contact with a Tuesday.
Who is actually in the room?
A course for account executives at agencies is a different product from a session for an in-house team of five who own the whole function. Most providers sell the first and describe it as the second.
My bias, stated
I am a solo trainer who does live, bespoke, small-group work built on the client’s own tools. My criteria favour exactly that. Read the weaknesses I have listed under my own name and decide.
The list
1. Dreams AI (me)
Before a team session I run a discovery call and research the organisation, then build the demos on your actual material. For a trade body communications and events team this year, that meant sitting with the real workflows: member communications, event promotion, the commercial and membership split, and what a small team does when three campaigns land in the same fortnight. Nothing on the screen was a generic example.
You leave with the prompts, the workflows written up, the recording, and two weeks of email support for the “how did you do that bit” questions.
→ Book a session · What actually happens in a session
2. CIPR
CIPR runs the broadest AI curriculum in the sector: eleven courses covering everything from an introduction, through prompt writing, AI ethics, crisis communication and risk, to strategic AI adoption for teams. The Introduction to AI course runs two days across two weeks, online, carrying 20 CPD credits. If your professional development is measured in CPD, nothing else on this page competes.
3. PRCA
The clearest-priced thing in the sector. Three hours, introductory level, aimed at account executives and above, covering AI applications in PR, content creation, audience targeting, measurement and the ethics. No pre-work. Andrew Smith teaches it and knows the subject properly.
4. Wadds Inc
The sharpest positioning in the market, and the only one on this page that deliberately refuses the tools question. Stephen Waddington’s course is explicitly “not suitable for anyone seeking training on AI tools”. It is about governance, organisational readiness and what a director does with the thing. You leave with a 90-day personal roadmap, a team action plan and an audit of the AI systems already running in your organisation. For a director, that is the more useful artefact.
5. Prohibition PR
The two-part structure is the right shape: a workshop that identifies where the bottlenecks actually are, then a mapping of tools, prompts and configurations against them plus a half-day session and a takeaway framework. That is much closer to how this should be done than a lecture.
6. The generic corporate providers
QA, Learning Tree, Elansio, Indexify and the rest will all sell you AI training, and some of it is good. None of it is comms-specific. You will get an excellent session on prompting and a case study about a manufacturer.
Use them when you want a whole-organisation rollout and comms is one of eight departments in the room. Do not use them when the point is your press office specifically. I’ve compared those providers, with prices, in the best AI training providers in the UK.
The whole market on one table
| Provider | Format | Published price | Comms-specific | Changes a workflow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dreams AI | Live, bespoke, your stack | Yes | Built per client | Yes, that is the point |
| CIPR | Online, multi-session | No | Yes, deeply | No |
| PRCA | Online, 3 hours | Yes, £235 / £330 + VAT | Yes | Partly |
| Wadds Inc | Online, 1 day, max 8 | No | Yes, director level | Governance, not workflow |
| Prohibition PR | Bespoke, 2 parts | No | Yes | Yes |
| QA / Learning Tree / Indexify | Classroom or online | Yes | No | Depends |
| Government AI Skills Hub | Self-paced online | Free | No | No |
Three of the six comms-specific providers do not publish a price. Draw your own conclusion.
The free options
They are genuinely good now and you should try them before you spend anything.
The government AI Skills Hub and the AI Skills Boost programme will put a foundational AI badge in front of most of the country over the next few years, free and self-paced. Anthropic and OpenAI both publish free courses on their own tools, and they are better than most paid introductions because they are written by the people who built the thing.
Here is the honest limit. Free training teaches the tool. It does not teach the job. Nobody has ever changed how their press office works because of a twenty-minute video, and the fact that ten million workers are about to be given one will not change that. If your team has already done the free modules and nothing is different, that is not a failure of effort. It is what those courses are for.
When I’m the wrong choice
- You need accredited CPD hours. Book CIPR. I issue nothing.
- You need one person given a cheap, credible grounding. Book the PRCA workshop for £235. It costs less than an hour of my time and it does that job.
- Your actual problem is AI governance and policy, not usage. Book Wadds Inc.
- You are rolling out across a whole organisation, not a team. That is Exponential Partners, not me.
- You want a certificate for the file. Almost anyone on this list beats me on that.
If you read this section, go and book the PRCA course, and come back in six months because your team now knows what AI is and still has not changed anything, that is a good outcome. You will arrive knowing exactly what you want.
Questions comms directors actually ask me
How much does AI training for a communications team cost in the UK?
Published prices in August 2026 run from £235 + VAT for a three-hour online workshop (PRCA) to bespoke team sessions from £2,499. CIPR, Wadds Inc and Prohibition PR do not publish prices. Free options exist through the government AI Skills Hub and the model providers' own courses.
Is there AI training specifically for in-house comms teams, or only for agencies?
Both exist, but most of the market is agency-shaped because that is where the professional bodies' membership sits. If you are an in-house team, ask directly whether the examples will be built on your material or on agency case studies, and get the answer before you book.
Do we need AI training if the team already uses ChatGPT?
Usually yes, and for a specific reason. Individual use plateaus quickly: people find three things it does well and stop. Team-level change means agreeing house voice, deciding what never goes near a model, and building the two or three workflows everyone uses. That does not happen on its own.
What about confidentiality? We handle embargoed and market-sensitive material.
That should be the first hour of any session, not an appendix. What goes in, what never goes in, which settings turn off training on your inputs, and what the written rule is. If a provider does not raise this before you do, take it as information.
Can it be done in one session?
One session changes what individuals do. Changing what a team does takes a session plus the follow-through, which is why I include two weeks of email support and why the better providers on this list build in a roadmap or an action plan.
If you want to talk
If you are not sure whether your team needs a three-hour grounding, a governance day or a session built on your own press office, message me and I will tell you honestly. Sometimes the answer is the PRCA workshop. Sometimes it is a morning with your team and your real material on the screen.
Last verified: 29 August 2026. Prices in this market move. If you find one that’s wrong, tell me and I’ll fix it.
Written by Riz Pabani, AI Trainer based in London. MIT AI Certified, 20+ years in technology.