Think with AI,
not at it.
A four-week intensive on building your own AI operating system — across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok — in person in Philadelphia.
What you'll actually leave with.
Most AI courses teach you how to type better questions into a chatbot. This one is different. By the end of four weeks, you will have built — with your own hands, on your own work — a complete personal AI operating system. Not a list of tips. A system you own.
You'll know which of the four leading models to reach for in which moment. You'll move fluidly between chat and voice, desktop and mobile, depending on where you are and what you're doing. You'll have a library of prompts you actually use, workflows you can repeat, and a way of working with AI that compounds rather than evaporates.
The tools will keep changing. What you learn here is portable across all of it.
This isn't about which buttons to click. The buttons will change. The interfaces will change. The models will change. What you're learning is how to think with AI — context, lifecycle, modality, artifact. That's portable across every tool, this year and next.
For people who are past the basics but not yet fluent.
A professional, founder, or creator.
You've used ChatGPT. You have a Claude tab open somewhere. You're not afraid of new tools.
You're missing 80% of what's possible.
You're getting value, but you can feel that you're scratching the surface of what these tools can do for your work.
To actually build something.
Not another set of videos to watch. A program where you leave with real artifacts on your real work, and a system to keep building.
This is notfor you if…
- You want a passive video course.
- You only want a list of prompts.
- You are not willing to bring real work into the room.
- You want AI hype instead of practice.
- You are not ready to build a system you will actually use.
Four modules. One coherent system.
This is a hands-on workshop, not a lecture series. You bring a real project of your own and work it across all four sessions — so what you build lands directly in your actual work, not in throwaway exercises. Each session is 2.5–3 hours, spaced exactly one week apart, and the weeks between sessions are where the real practice happens. Every module produces tangible, actionable artifacts you walk away with; by Module 4, those artifacts have become a complete personal AI operating system.
The Foundation
Setting up, thinking clearly, and producing your first artifact.
Get the tools properly configured. Install the right apps, enable the right connectors, configure the right settings. Then learn the four core concepts that make every conversation work: context, lifecycle, modality, and artifact. Leave the session with your personal identity framework already built — the seed for every future conversation with AI.
Working the Thread
Mastering context, memory, and the lifecycle of a conversation.
The module where craft becomes muscle memory. Learn the anatomy of a strong thread — how to open it, work it, close it, and feed the next one. Build your first Project for an ongoing area of work. Start a prompt library you'll actually use. This is the module that separates people who use AI from people who work with it.
Beyond the Desk
Voice, mobile, and the multi-modal workflow.
Most of your best thinking happens when you're not at a computer. Learn to capture that thinking by voice and feed it back into your work without losing momentum. Practice the three patterns for moving between mobile and desktop. Build a “modality map” of your actual week — where each kind of thinking happens, and which tool supports it.
The Stack
Multi-model fluency and building your personal AI operating system.
Expand from one ecosystem to all four — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok. Learn where each model wins and where it fails. Build your model-selection playbook. Compose cross-model workflows where one tool's output becomes another's input. Then assemble everything from the previous three modules into one coherent personal AI operating system. You leave the program with a system, not just a set of tools.
In person in Philadelphia. For now.
The flagship version of this program is delivered in person — small cohort, real room, shared focus. There's a felt-sense difference between thinking together in a space and thinking together over screens, and the material we're working with deserves the better version.
Cohort 01 sessions — June 2026
Four Tuesdays in June 2026, 5–8pm, in central Philadelphia.
- Module 01 — Foundation
- Module 02 — Working the Thread
- Module 03 — Beyond the Desk
- Module 04 — The Stack
Location: Compass Real Estate, Center City — 1430 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102.
Cohort mechanics
Capped at 12 seats — first come, first served. Small enough for genuine attention, large enough for peer learning to compound. Each cohort gets a private community space that stays open after the program ends.
Recorded sessions — every session is recorded, and the recordings are distributed to all participants afterward. Revisit anything, and never lose a session to a scheduling conflict.
1:1 time — one private session with me between Modules 2 and 3. The midpoint check-in where the customization happens. Your specific work, your specific stuck points, get attention.
Graduation— a small ritual at the end of Module 4 that marks the transition. Your peers see what you've built. You see what they've built. The cohort becomes a network.
A system. Not a stack of notes.
At the end of four weeks, you walk away with:
- Your personal identity framework ready to seed any AI conversation, with any model.
- A curated prompt library organized by use case, tested on your real work.
- Your model-selection playbook — which LLM to use for which job, and why.
- Saved workflows across modalities chat, voice, desktop, mobile, all working together.
- The meta-skill using AI as a thinking partner, not a search engine. The thing that actually compounds.
- A small group of peerswho are leveling up alongside you, and who you'll keep building with after.
- Recordings of all four sessions distributed to you afterward — yours to keep and revisit.
Level Up is the on-ramp.
Aetherium is where the road goes.
Level Up gets you fluent in the tools. The frameworks you build here — identity, context, structured outputs — are the same primitives that power Aetherium, a deeper architecture for using AI in service of who you're becoming. Graduates of Level Up get a first look and a founding rate on the Aetherium Identity Intensive. No pressure. The bridge is there if you want it.
About Chris.
Chris Porto
Strategist, builder, and practitioner — working at the intersection of consciousness, culture, and the systems we build together.
A dozen years in real estate and development — preceded by solar project finance and consulting at Deloitte; two decades of formal contemplative practice; the last several years building AI-native tools for the examined life. Aetherium, Futurescape, and Navigate the Way are the ventures behind this work. Level Up with AI is the practical on-ramp — the tools and workflows that make AI a thinking partner rather than a productivity gimmick.
Read the full path →Why this is priced this way.
This is a small-room intensive, not a webinar. You are getting four live sessions, one private midpoint session, direct feedback on your actual work, a peer cohort, and a complete personal AI operating system you can keep using long after the program ends.
The tools will keep changing. The system you build with me is yours forever, and the way of thinking is portable across every model and interface that comes next.
One practical note: many professionals fund a workshop like this through an employer professional-development budget, a continuing-education allocation, or business-expense reimbursement. If that applies to you, it's worth a quick ask.
Cohort 01 · $1,997
Capped at 12 seats, first come, first served. Four Tuesdays in June 2026, in central Philadelphia. Your payment reserves your spot — I'll be in touch personally to confirm the details and venue.
Reserve My Seat — $1,997 →