Skills England has launched three new AI leadership apprenticeship units as part of the flagship reform to the growth and skills levy. The intent is right. Employers tell us they need leaders who understand AI, can make good decisions about it, and can create the conditions for it to deliver value across their organisations. The government has heard that and responded. That matters, and I want to be absolutely clear about it before I say what comes next. Sadly, in their current format the apprenticeship units are not fit for purpose. The evidence on how leaders develop is clear. Flexibility beats intensity. After training tens of thousands of leaders at Corndel, we know that live instruction alone doesn’t produce behaviour change. The leaders who change how they work are the ones who combine structured learning with applied practice, peer reflection and self-directed development. Yet, the government’s three new apprenticeship units each mandate 30 hours of live delivery. Across all three, that is 90 hours of synchronous instruction – nearly three working weeks of getting senior leaders in a room or on a Zoom call. We have tested this directly with employers. It’s no surprise that it simply will not work. A live delivery requirement is not a learning design decision, or a guarantor of impact. It produces programmes optimised for compliance rather than outcomes. That is an unintended consequence of a system that was meant to increase flexibility, not reduce it. There is a better way. Corndel is designing AI leadership units around impact – made for leaders, not rules. Genuine blended delivery, where live teaching is one ingredient alongside applied practice, self‑directed learning and peer reflection. Programmes designed around what leaders actually need, not what is easiest to count. BCG research published last year found that only 5 per cent of organisations are genuinely generating transformative value from AI. What separates them from the rest is not technology investment. It is leadership commitment. Getting AI leadership development right is the highest-leverage intervention available to most organisations right now. At Corndel, we have made a clear decision. We will not deliver a levy-funded model that is not fit for purpose. Instead, we have built our own AI leadership programme, using the subject matter of the apprenticeship units but designed around what employers and their leaders tell us they need. We’re choosing not to charge the employers we partner with. It will be better than anything the funded model currently allows. We are launching it with employers, building in their voice from day one. Their experience, and the impact data we gather, will go back to government – in the hope that it helps improve a model that has the right ambition, but serious flaws when it comes to delivering impact on the ground. We support what the government is trying to do. We want apprenticeship units – whether in AI or more broadly – to work. If the live delivery requirements for leadership programmes are revised to reflect the evidence on how adults learn, and if the funding model is adjusted to make quality provision viable, Corndel will be at the front of the queue. Until then, we will do what is right for employers and learners.