EXECAIResidency
EXECAIResidency By application
31 Aug to 3 Sep 2026 · Gold Coast

Slow down. To speed up, with AI.

You have Copilot Premium. And now you’re using Claude too. The occasional chat gets a good result. But you can feel the gap between where you are now, and what your business could be doing with AI. The clock is ticking. Three days to close it, properly.

Applications close 31 July 2026.
Limited places remaining.

20
leaders in
one room
3
intensive days
and nights
1
opportunity
to get it right
Justin has trained leaders and teams at
The ambition gap

Dabbling got you curious.
It will not get you ahead.

You have seen what these tools can do in flashes. A draft here, a summary there, a result good enough to mention at dinner. That is not transformation. That is potential, idling.

The gap between the occasional chat and an AI-run operation is not another subscription. It is set-up, judgement and reps. You have watched colleagues and competitors start to move. And when the board asks about AI, you want answers of your own.

Justin Kabbani working with a room of executives

The tools are not the differentiator. The way you use them is.

Lead from the front

AI transformation is
leader-led, or it stalls.

The pattern is unmistakable. Handing your people licences does not change a company. Leaders who can build, and who go first, change a company.

Davos · Jan 2026

40 seconds: why Visa’s CEO wishes he’d trained his top 300 leaders how to use AI effectively sooner.

“We didn’t really see the breakthrough until we got our top 300 people in the room for two days… hands-on keyboard training, build agents, be supervised, be evaluated. Once those top 300 leaders had confidence to build… that was the unlock for us, and I wish I would have known it earlier.”
Ryan McInerney Chief Executive Officer, Visa World Economic Forum, Davos, January 2026.
Scaling AI: Now Comes the Hard Part (Youtube)

“The biggest barrier to scaling
is not employees, who are ready.
It is leaders, who are not
steering fast enough.”

McKinsey & Company, Superagency in the Workplace, January 2025.
Survey of 3,613 employees and 238 C-suite leaders.

“With strong leadership support,
the share of employees positive about AI
jumps from 15% to 55%. Only a quarter say
their leaders give enough guidance.”

Boston Consulting Group, AI at Work, June 2025.
Survey of 10,635 workers across 11 countries.

Your company takes its cue from you.
When the leader is a step ahead, the whole business moves. That is why this room exists.

Platform agnostic. Platform fluent.

Leading expert across every major AI platform

ClaudeClaude
CopilotCopilot
ChatGPTChatGPT
GeminiGemini
PerplexityPerplexity
OpenClawOpenClaw
After the residency

What your world looks like
after the residency.

This is the point of the three days. Not a certificate, a different operating rhythm.

Your day

Your morning starts with output, not a blank screen. Reporting, comms and research drafted overnight by systems you built, waiting on your judgement.

Your strategic work

The thinking you kept deferring finally has room. Deep work happens in protected blocks, because the busywork now runs itself.

Your board reporting

The pack assembles itself from your numbers. You walk into the boardroom with answers about AI, not questions.

Your team

You lead the shift instead of watching it. A clear playbook, a cascade pathway, and people taking their cue from a leader who has built.

Your growth

The next phase is priced on systems, not headcount. Capacity scales without the payroll scaling with it.

Your future

You stop reacting to the technology. You have a system for absorbing what comes next, and a network of leaders doing the same.

You return to your business as the leader at the bleeding edge. Equipped with the latest tools, and a clear understanding of exactly how to use them.

The three days

A residency, not a retreat.

You build on your own business, in a room of peers, with everything handled. It’s not Out of Office, it’s working ‘ON’ the business. Here is the shape of it.

P0 Phase zero. Before you arrive

The residency starts weeks early.

A private one-on-one discovery call understanding your AI experience and your ambition, a structured interview on how your business actually runs, and a technical setup session. Content is customised for you. You land fully configured, not calling IT from the room.

00 Arrival. Monday 31/8

The reveal and the revelation.

You arrive, settle into the luxury of Mondrian Gold Coast, and we open with a session that resets what you think is possible with AI. Then dinner in the Sky Residence, where 20 business leaders become one cohort.

01 Priming. Tuesday 1/9

Foundations and your stack.

We setup your platforms, your data structure, and your intent, then install the core of your AI stack so it is live before the day is out. Set up properly, from the start. You leave the first day with the engine fully tuned.

02 Prompting. Wednesday 2/9

The big build.

You build your first real workflows on your actual business, across reporting, comms, and research, with hands-on guidance and your peers building beside you. That evening, a special guest industry leader joins for a memorable dinner and discussion about AI implementation.

Overnight, our team advances and fixes your builds while you sleep, so you wake to progressing systems.

03 Producing. Thursday 3/9

Ship and commit.

You scope and start one high-impact project, present it to the room, and leave with a 90-day plan. We close over lunch. You head home with an AI stack that runs, not a folder of notes.

04 Beyond. The follow-through

The residency follows you home.

Momentum is designed in, not hoped for. Back in the business, it continues:

  • Three fortnightly catch-ups with the cohort once you are back in the business
  • A one-to-one follow-up session to make sure your systems stick and scale
  • An optional lunch and learn with your leadership team, bringing what you built back into the business (additional cost)
Woven throughout

Sunrise walk through the Burleigh headland. Guided flow sessions to maximise your deep work. Room to think and network with peers. The work is intense. The setting is what makes it stick.

Full run of show, tools, and materials are shared with successful applicants.

Who’s in the room

20 leaders. No passengers.

Every seat is curated, so the level of conversation stays high and every voice in the room runs a significant, established business.

No direct competitors. Chatham House Rule, so people speak plainly.

You see what others are actually building, and hash out your plans with like-minded leaders facing the same pressures and the same opportunities. The network you leave with is one of the best side benefits of the three days.

What leaders say

Equipped, not just inspired.

From the rooms Justin has run for 5,000+ professionals across 50+ industries.

He’s incredibly hands-on, practical, and has a knack for embedding AI in a way that’s actually usable.

Jess Vassallo

Jess Vassallo

Founder & CEO, Evocative Media

Absolutely exceeded all our expectations and received unanimous praise from the team.

Michael Levine

Michael Levine

Head of Advertising Sales ANZ, Uber

Practical, sharp and immediately impactful. You didn’t just talk AI, you armed us to run with it.

Zoe Hertelendi

Zoe Hertelendi

Managing Director, Freedom NZ

Expertly tailored sessions blending practical tools with real-world relevance.

Lyndsey Mead

Lyndsey Mead

Membership & Communications Coordinator, Pharmacy Guild WA

Cohort one is by application. Its results will speak for themselves.

Everything handled

From the moment you land
to the moment you rise up.

Peak mental condition is not a luxury add-on. It’s the reason the work sticks.

A private transfer waiting outside Gold Coast Airport at dusk

Arrival and transfers

Landed, met and moved from Gold Coast airport to the Mondrian, and every detail from then on.

A guest room at Mondrian Gold Coast with ocean light through sheer curtains

Accommodation on site

The entire cohort are in residence, accommodated on site. No commuting, no hunting for a room.

The restaurant at Mondrian Gold Coast, set for service

Every meal considered

Food designed for focus and steady energy, so the afternoon session is as sharp as the morning.

A sunrise movement session on the grass above the beach

Daily movement

Training sessions built into the day, at your comfort level. Entirely optional, never awkward.

The salt room at Mondrian Gold Coast, warm and quiet

Wellness and recovery

Recovery is scheduled, not squeezed in around the edges. Ocean, space and quiet when you need it.

Justin Kabbani working through his framework with a room of operators

Built on flow

Deep work in blocks, designed by a certified flow coach, so your best thinking arrives when it counts.

The cognitive load of organising anything is taken off you entirely.
To allow you to maximise your time and your impact.

The setting

Mondrian Gold Coast.
Ocean, restraint, and total focus.

The luxurious Mondrian Gold Coast at Burleigh Heads brings a new energy to this iconic surfing coastline. Experience a richly textured aesthetic that captures Burleigh’s rolling waves, fragrant pines, and white sands of the Pacific coastline. All programming and most meals are on site.

The LiTO pre-function space at Mondrian Gold Coast
Bar seating at Haven, Mondrian Gold Coast
The LiTO restaurant set for a private dinner
Your host

Justin Kabbani

Justin spent 17 years building and running the agency Hardhat before exiting in 2022. He has sat where you sit: the P&L, the payroll, the pressure to call the next move before it is obvious. When he talks about AI in your business, it is as an operator, not a theorist.

Since the exit he has gone all in on one question: what does this technology actually change for a business like yours? The answer became AI Mastery, and a reputation as Australia’s leading AI strategist, keynote speaker and implementation coach, built on live builds in front of live audiences, never slideware. His rooms leave equipped, not just inspired.

He is also a certified flow coach, which is why these three days are engineered around your mental state as carefully as your build plan. Expect momentum: he builds beside you, pushes past the comfortable version of your plan, and stays on you through the follow-through until the systems stick.

5,000+
professionals trained
250+
events delivered
150+
AI Mastery workshops
50+
industries served
A packed auditorium at one of Justin's keynotes
Justin with a full workshop room
An executive session in progress
Justin presenting to a leadership audience
Three nights

Mon 31/8 to Thu 3/9

20 leaders

1 host, 2 facilitators

All-inclusive

Program, accom, meals

Gold Coast

Mondrian Burleigh Heads

What you'll build

Come with something
you want to build.

The best projects hide in plain sight. The report you wait days for. The integration nobody has built. The tool you wish existed. The licence you resent paying. The manual job that eats your team’s week.

Before

We define the right project

On a call before you arrive, we help you pick a project that is realistic, valuable and will show a clear return. Then we get your environment and your data set up, so day one starts at full speed.

In the room

You build it, and finish it

Over three days you build it on your actual business, with Justin and two facilitators beside you and an overnight team advancing it while you sleep. We get you to the finish line.

After

We support you past the finish

Follow-through sessions keep you supported once you are home, so it lands in the business and you keep building the next thing yourself.

Apply Now

Seats are limited
and the room is curated.

Tell us about you and your business.
Justin reads every application personally.

Already paying to have software built, or licensing it for around $15k a year? This is the same money, spent once, to build it yourself.

You leave with it built, not with notes, and the skill to build the next thing yourself.

The investment: $14,997 + GST

All-inclusive from arrival to departure.
Three-day program, phase zero, the follow-through sessions,
transfers, accommodation, meals and activities. Flights excluded.

Three short steps. About a minute. Then we book a call.

Applications close 31 July 2026.
Limited places remaining.

Questions

A few things, answered.

Who is in the room?+

20 founders, CEOs and senior executives, deliberately blended across industries so the thinking cross-pollinates. No direct competitors are seated together, so you can speak openly about how your business actually runs. The room is small on purpose: everyone builds, everyone presents, and nobody hides up the back. Half the value of these three days is the peer group you leave with.

Should I send my team instead?+

Send them later. The evidence is consistent: adoption follows the leader. Visa preached AI from the top for 18 months and saw the breakthrough only when its top 300 leaders trained hands-on. McKinsey and BCG both land on the same point, that the constraint is leaders, not employees. You go first, then the follow-through is built in: fortnightly catch-ups, a one-to-one session, and an optional lunch and learn to cascade what you built through your leadership team.

What is included?+

Everything from landing to departure. Airport transfers, three nights on site at Mondrian Gold Coast, every meal, movement and wellness sessions, and every working session with Justin and the facilitation team. Phase zero starts weeks before you arrive, and the follow-through continues after you leave: three fortnightly catch-ups and a one-to-one session. There is nothing to organise and nothing to expense separately, apart from your flights.

What is the investment?+

$14,997 + GST, all-inclusive from arrival to departure. That covers the three-day program, phase zero, the post-residency sessions, transfers, accommodation, meals and activities. Flights are excluded. A 50% deposit by credit card secures your seat on successful application, with the balance due no later than two weeks before arrival.

When do applications close?+

Applications close on 31 July 2026, and limited places remain. Applications are reviewed in the order they arrive, and the room is confirmed in early August so phase zero can begin. If the room fills before the closing date, a waitlist opens.

Which tools do we build on?+

The frontier stack that fits your business, not a one-size-fits-all licence. Justin is platform agnostic and independent, with deep expertise across Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Gemini, and he has no reseller arrangement with any of them. In phase zero we look at what your business already runs and choose deliberately. The point is not the licence. It is the way it is set up and used.

What about governance and risk?+

Doing it properly is the governance. Accounts, data boundaries, access and security are set up correctly in phase zero and day one, before anything is built on top. You leave knowing what data goes where, what stays inside your walls, and how to answer the risk question when your board or your customers ask it. That is a stronger position than a policy document nobody has tested.

Do I need to be technical?+

No. If you can describe how your business actually runs, you can build this. The sessions are hands-on but guided: Justin and two facilitators do the technical lifting beside you, and the overnight team advances your builds while you sleep. What you bring is judgement about your business. That is the part nobody can do for you.

Is this for beginners?+

No. It is for leaders who have been using the tools and know there is another level. If you have Copilot or Claude open most days, get decent results, and still sense the gap between that and an AI-run operation, you are exactly who this is for. If you are after a first introduction to AI, a keynote or a one-day workshop is a better and far cheaper place to start.

When and where?+

Mondrian Gold Coast at Burleigh Heads, Monday 31 August to Thursday 3 September 2026. Arrive Monday afternoon for the opening session and dinner in the Sky Residence, and we close over lunch on Thursday, so most of the cohort flies home Thursday afternoon. Gold Coast Airport is 15 minutes away, and transfers are handled.

How are people selected?+

Three short steps, then a call with Justin. He reads every application personally and curates the room for seniority, mix and intent, the same way he seats a board dinner. Selection is not about how advanced you are with AI. It is about whether you are ready to build, and whether the room works better with you in it.