From scattered to owning your future.

AI Performance Lab is an AI strategy and leadership-training firm that helps enterprise leadership teams design their AI strategy and train their people to execute it. Founded by Dr. Michael Housman and Alan VanToai, based in Texas, delivered on site in 27 countries.

The Two Challenges We Solve

Across every industry we work in, leadership teams describe the same two problems in almost the same words.

Challenge 01

No cohesive AI strategy or vision

Pilots and licenses have spread bottom-up. Nobody owns the roadmap, the leadership team has not agreed what AI means for the business, and every function moves at its own pace. The first decisions, who sponsors it, how it is governed, and how much to invest, never get made.

Challenge 02

AI tools bought, no adoption

The licenses are rolled out and usage stops at search and email drafting. A resistant block never touches the tools, leaders do not model the behavior, one-off training fades within weeks, and the board is starting to ask what it got for the money.

The leaders who solve these two challenges will own the future of their industries. We built two programs, one for each.

What AI Performance Lab Does

01 · Design your AI strategy

AI Transformation Blueprint

A three-to-four-week strategy engagement for your leadership team, with one day on site.

→One honest picture of where you stand. Every AI effort in flight, what your tools are actually used for, and how fluent your leaders are.
→A leadership team that agrees. A day together deciding what AI means for your business, which bets come first, and who owns each.
→A roadmap your board will back. Sequenced initiatives with an owner, a metric, and an ROI hypothesis on every line.
→The first decisions made. Sponsorship, governance, investment level, and which tools to sanction.

How it works →

02 · Train your team

AI Performance Lab

A twelve-month program, run quarterly, that turns your leadership team into daily AI users.

→Adoption you can measure. Every leader scored at kickoff and re-tested at the close.
→ROI inside the year. Each leader carries one capstone project with a before-and-after number attached.
→Leaders who build, not just approve. A hands-on workshop each quarter on your own workflows, monthly live sessions in between.
→Works with what you have. Delivered inside Copilot, Glean, or whatever your IT team has approved.

How it works →

Also available on their own

AI Workshops & Keynotes

Keynotes, half-day and full-day workshops, and lunch-and-learn sessions for offsites and leadership summits.

→Your team builds, not just listens. Ads, pitches, and prototypes shipped with AI in the room before the day ends.
→A shared starting point. Everyone leaves with the same language, the same mindset shift, and a first agent of their own.
→Tuned to your industry. Every agenda is assembled from our curriculum library for your audience and outcome.
→Nothing wasted. Included in every Blueprint and Lab, and the fee is credited toward the Lab if you continue within 60 days.

See workshops →

What Makes AI Performance Lab Different

Leaders first, not a course catalog

Coursera for Business, Udemy Business, and Skillsoft sell libraries to the whole workforce. We work with the people who set direction.

→Adoption that cascades. Leaders who build with AI themselves get teams that do too, so the 10 to 40 people in the room move the other thousands.
→No seat sprawl. You pay for the cohort that changes the company, not a license for everyone that most never open.

Measured before and after

A keynote speaker leaves you with applause. We leave you with a delta.

→A number for the board. Every engagement opens with a diagnostic and closes with a re-test.
→Proof it works. At a top-10 pharmaceutical client, daily AI use rose from 16 percent to 83 percent in four months.

Taught by operators who shipped AI

McKinsey Academy, BCG X, and Accenture LearnVantage staff engagements with consultants. We show up with people who have done the work.

→Advice from the field, not the slide. Michael spent 17 years building machine-learning platforms in production before he taught a single executive. Alan has founded and sold three software companies.
→A faculty your partners will respect. Former EY partners and a Global CEO of Oxford Leadership lead their own sessions.

Works inside the tools you already own

Vendor-run training exists to sell more seats. Ours exists to get the seats you already pay for used well.

→No platform to buy. We teach on Microsoft Copilot, Glean, Gemini, or your internal LLM, whatever IT has sanctioned.
→No fight with security. Nothing leaves your approved stack, so governance stays intact and shadow AI shrinks.

Small pilots, simple terms

Big-firm transformation programs start at seven figures and multi-year commitments. Ours start with one leadership team and one quarter.

→Prove it before you scale it. A Blueprint is a fixed fee over three to four weeks. The Lab is priced per leader on quarterly terms, so a 20-leader cohort can show results first.
→Nothing wasted. A workshop fee is credited toward the Lab if you continue within 60 days.

The founders are in every room

You are not handed off to a delivery bench after the sale.

→Michael and Alan lead every Blueprint workshop and Lab kickoff personally.
→Every proposal is reviewed by Michael before it reaches you.

Who Uses AI Performance Lab

→Executive leadership teams at mid-market and enterprise companies, roughly 500 to 50,000 employees, that have AI pilots running but no shared plan.
→CIOs, CTOs, and Chief People Officers who own the AI roadmap and need their peers fluent enough to lead it, not just approve it.
→Industrial and regulated businesses in energy and utilities, construction and manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, and financial services, where data governance limits which tools are allowed.
→Global professional-services and L&D leaders building firm-wide AI programs for partners and senior staff.
→Universities, executive-education programs, and conference organizers that need a practitioner faculty for AI sessions.
→Boards and CEOs preparing to approve large AI investments who want the literacy to know what they are approving.

Recent rooms

A power-generation company's digital technology council. The executive committee of a South African media group. The partners of EY Switzerland. Plant directors at General Motors. The leadership team of a Virginia mechanical contractor. Brand and communications leaders at Bupa across Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific.

The Team Behind AI Performance Lab

AI Performance Lab grew out of AI-ccelerator, the keynote and workshop practice Michael Housman started in 2018 after a decade of building machine-learning platforms. The pattern in those rooms was always the same: executives walked in skeptical, shipped a prototype by lunch, and emailed three months later to say nothing had stuck.

In 2026 Michael and Alan VanToai relaunched the practice as AI Performance Lab to close that gap, pairing a strategy engagement that gets the leadership team aligned with a year-long program that trains them to execute. The team today is two founders, four instructors, and a small operations group, working from Austin and San Antonio.

Dr. Michael Housman

Co-Founder · CEO

PhD economist (Wharton; Harvard) who chose building over the ivory tower. 17 years shipping ML platforms across five startups, one acquired and one public. 243 keynotes in 27 countries and author of Future Proof. Faculty at Singularity University and UT Austin's McCombs School.

Read full bio →

Alan VanToai

Co-Founder · President

Serial technology entrepreneur and investor. 15 years founding software companies, three of them sold, plus a stint building a multibillion-dollar decentralized exchange. Runs strategy, product, and client engagements at AI Performance Lab and co-leads every Blueprint workshop.

Riaz Shah, OBE

Future of Work · Instructor

27-year EY Partner and Professor at Hult. Advised governments and CEOs across 80+ countries. Awarded an OBE for education.

Tal Goldhamer

Learning Strategy · Instructor

Former Partner and Chief Learning Officer at EY. Two decades building learning programs for leadership teams worldwide. Founder of Find The Tailwind.

Kyle Hermans

Leadership · Instructor

Global CEO of Oxford Leadership and co-founder of Be Courageous. Singularity University fellow. Led transformation at hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies.

Christopher Garyet

Generative AI · Instructor

Architects GenAI and GPU cloud infrastructure. Drove AI adoption at Microsoft, Oracle, and Google. Electrical engineer (Georgia Tech).

Jenah Lagdameo

Systems & Strategy

Development economist focused on systems improvement. Seven years streamlining complex processes and designing digital reforms in the public sector.

Samantha Womelsdorf

Business Development

Healthcare-deep BD specialist. Translates complex market data into actionable executive strategies. MHA, Texas Tech.

How AI Performance Lab Works

01
Apply, then a working call
Michael and Alan read every application personally, not a sales rep. If it looks like a fit, we get on a call about where AI stands in your company and which of the two challenges is holding you back. If we are not the right fit, we will say so.
02
A proposal within a week
Scoped to your cohort, industry, and tool stack, with pricing in it. Michael reviews every proposal personally before it is sent, and we walk you through it live rather than emailing a PDF and hoping.
03
Onboarding, about a month before day one
A participant survey and AI fluency diagnostic, an audit of your sanctioned tools and current AI efforts, and a planning call to lock the venue, the room, and what pre-reading (usually a chapter of Future Proof) goes out.
04
Delivery by the people you met
Michael and Alan lead every Blueprint workshop and Lab kickoff on site. Instructors join for their specialties, and our program lead handles logistics, scheduling, and the learning platform so your team never chases us.
05
Between sessions
A shared channel in your Slack or Teams, or plain email if you prefer, with replies within one business day. Lab participants also get monthly live sessions, office hours on the Pro and Platinum tiers, and a private cohort community.
06
The readout
A Blueprint ends with the roadmap presented to your leadership team, three to four weeks after kickoff. A Lab quarter ends with the re-tested diagnostic and capstone results, the numbers you take to the board.

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Turnaround

Proposal in about a week. Blueprint delivered in 3 to 4 weeks. Custom workshop agenda in a few business days.

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Who you work with

Michael Housman and Alan VanToai on every engagement, plus a dedicated program lead.

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Response time

Within one business day, US Central time.

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Contact

hello@aiperformancelab.ai

Key Facts

Company name	AI Performance Lab (formerly AI-ccelerator)
Type	Privately held AI strategy and leadership-training firm
Founded	2018 as AI-ccelerator; relaunched as AI Performance Lab in 2026
Founders	Dr. Michael Housman (Co-Founder, CEO) and Alan VanToai (Co-Founder, President)
Headquarters	Austin and San Antonio, Texas, USA. Programs delivered on site worldwide.
Website	aiperformancelab.ai
Core offering	AI Transformation Blueprint (a 3 to 4 week strategy engagement) and the AI Performance Lab (a 12-month leadership training program)
Pricing	Workshops from $25,000. Blueprint is a fixed fee from $50,000, scoped to team size. Lab is priced per leader per month, from $1,000, with a 20-seat minimum.
Contract terms	Blueprint: single fixed-fee engagement, invoiced on signature. Lab: quarterly contracts, 15% discount on annual. Workshop fees are credited toward the Lab if you continue within 60 days.
Services	AI strategy roadmap, executive AI fluency diagnostic, leadership AI training, capstone project coaching, keynotes and hands-on workshops, AI readiness assessment
Communication	hello@aiperformancelab.ai, direct email to both founders, and a shared channel during engagements. Replies within one business day.
Notable clients	Aramco, Accenture, PepsiCo, Walmart, Sony, Oracle, Cisco, Barclays, Deloitte, EY, UEFA, United Nations, Sanofi, Medtronic, NextEra Energy
Customers served	Thousands of executives across 27 countries
Projects delivered	243 keynotes and workshops. Published case studies: a top-10 pharmaceutical company, PetLab Co., and Doma.
Competitors	Section, BCG X, McKinsey Academy, Accenture LearnVantage, Coursera for Business, Udemy Business, and independent keynote speakers
Social	LinkedIn: Michael Housman, Alan VanToai. Book: Future Proof on Amazon.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who is AI Performance Lab for?

Leadership teams at mid-market and enterprise companies that have AI activity underway but no shared plan, or that have rolled out AI tools and are not seeing adoption. We work with the people who set direction, typically 10 to 40 executives and senior leaders, rather than the whole workforce.

What is the difference between the Blueprint and the Lab?

The AI Transformation Blueprint answers the strategy question: three to four weeks that end in a board-ready roadmap your leadership team built itself. The AI Performance Lab answers the adoption question: a twelve-month program that trains your leaders to execute it. Most clients start with the Blueprint and continue into the Lab, but each stands on its own.

Do we need to buy new AI tools first?

No. We teach inside the tools your IT team has already approved, whether that is Microsoft Copilot, Glean, Gemini, or an internal LLM. Where your stack is limiting you, the Blueprint tells you exactly what to ask for and why.

How do you measure results?

Every leader is scored at kickoff and re-tested at the close, and every Lab participant carries one capstone project with a before-and-after number attached. At a top-10 pharmaceutical client, daily AI use went from 16 percent to 83 percent in four months.

How large should our cohort be?

Blueprints run with a leadership team of up to about 20. Lab cohorts work best at 20 to 30 leaders and can start smaller as a pilot. Workshops scale from 20 to 60 people in a room.

Do you work outside the United States?

Yes. We have delivered programs in 27 countries, including recent work in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Sweden, South Africa, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. Blueprints and workshops are delivered on site; Lab sessions between quarterly workshops run live online.

Do you still do keynotes and one-off workshops?

Yes. Keynotes, half-day and full-day workshops, and lunch-and-learn sessions are available on their own, and every Blueprint and Lab includes them. A workshop fee is credited toward the Lab if you continue within 60 days.