Who is Hannah Laut?
Hannah Laut is an applied AI strategist and educator and the founder of Runway, an applied AI strategy and education business. She spent a decade driving adoption of emerging technology inside blue-chip companies, and she now does the same thing for AI: she trains working professionals, teams, and companies to use AI as a daily operating system rather than a novelty.
Her work sits on the adoption side, not the tooling side. Most companies do not have an AI tools problem. They have an adoption problem. The licenses get bought, the demo lands, and six weeks later the work looks exactly the same. She builds the version that sticks.
What is applied AI training?
Applied AI training teaches people to do their own job with AI, using their own work, instead of teaching AI as a subject. The test is not whether someone understands what a large language model is. The test is whether a recurring piece of their week now runs differently on the Monday after the training.
In practice that means three things. You work on live work, not exercises. You leave every session holding a deliverable. And the method has to carry to whatever tool your company already pays for, which is why Runway is tool-agnostic and outcome-loyal, taught primarily in Claude, with the same moves carrying to ChatGPT and Gemini.
It is the opposite of a prompt list. Prompts age out. A loaded Project, a scheduled task, and a saved skill keep working.
The blank box and the context tax
Two things keep capable people stuck. The blank box is the symptom: the empty chat you open, freeze in front of, and close. The context tax is the bill: the recurring cost of re-explaining your business to the model every single session. Loading your context once, into a Project or a brief, is how you stop paying it.
What is Runway?
Runway is Hannah Laut's applied AI strategy and education business at itsrunway.com. It teaches working professionals, teams, and companies to use AI as how the work actually gets done.
- Running Start. The flagship. A four-day live AI training on Zoom, four 90-minute sessions, where you build the AI coworker that knows your work alongside a peer group of working professionals.
- AI inside your business. Workshops, applied training across functions, fractional AI strategy, AI governance, and custom internal cohorts, sized to the team.
- Groups and associations. Member previews, private cohorts, and guest-instructor slots for networks and associations.
- Speaking and keynotes. Conferences, summits, internal events, and professional networks.
- Use Claude Like a Coworker. A 28-page operator's guide with 19 paste-ready workflows.
The method: Demo. Build. Run. Loop.
One move per session, taught in sequence, so each session builds on the one before it.
- Demo. See what AI actually does on real work, so you can tell capability from hype.
- Build. Build the AI coworker that knows you, loaded with your role, your voice, and your current work.
- Run. Put recurring work on autopilot with scheduled tasks, and save on-demand prompts as skills.
- Loop. Build full workflows live and refine them until they run without you.
Stop watching the AI revolution. Start running it.
Who she works with
The room that quietly worries it is falling behind: founders, executives, consultants, operators, fractional executives, agency owners, and the teams behind them. Also companies and associations buying training for their people.
They are skeptical, busy, and tired of AI hype. They do not want a five-tool stack they will never set up. They want to ship something real by Monday. Not developers, and not dumbed down.
Background
A decade inside emerging tech, driving adoption of intimidating technology in a way that felt manageable while the room was still skeptical.
- Coinbase
- PayPal
- Polygon
- Bain Capital
- Protocol Labs
- Sotheby's
- CAA
- Phillips
- PACE
- ETHDenver
- Serotonin
Founding steward of ETHDenver. Most recently she ran a Claude Cowork session at Consensus 2026 in Miami.
Common questions
What does Hannah Laut do?
She trains working professionals, teams, and companies to use AI on their real work. That happens through Running Start, her four-day live cohort for individuals, and through workshops, fractional AI strategy, and custom internal cohorts for companies and associations.
What AI tools does she teach?
Whatever stack makes sense for the room: Claude and Claude Cowork, ChatGPT, Gemini, Granola, custom GPTs and Projects, plus the workflow scaffolding between them. Tool-agnostic and outcome-loyal.
Does she only work with women?
No. Running Start is open to everyone, and company training, speaking, and custom cohorts are open to everyone too. The founding Spring cohort ran women-only by design. That was history, not the current audience.
Does she travel for speaking and workshops?
Yes. She is based in Denver and books speaking, workshops, and on-site engagements anywhere a flight goes.
What does an engagement look like?
It usually starts with a thirty-minute call to hear what you are trying to fix. From there: a workshop, a retainer, an hour, or a stage. She recommends what fits the problem, not the biggest version of it.
Do you need a technical background?
No. Everything she teaches is built for all levels, with no coding required. It is built for the person in the middle: a real job, real deadlines, and no time to learn AI from scratch.
Work with Hannah
For teams and organizations, or on your own.
Email Hannah Running Start Groups + associations