Director, Learning Product and AI Strategy, United Way Worldwide

I redesign work for AI, and prove the change with evidence.

Make the safe path the fast path

The agent works inside the lineIt uses only what it’s been given, and an instruction hidden in a document can’t widen its limits.
Permission to draft is not permission to sendA person who can say no approves anything before it leaves.
The line moves on evidenceAI keeps getting more capable, so I widen the limits one permission at a time, with test evidence.

I treat learning and AI as one job, because learning is where an organization redesigns its work for AI. That means deciding which work AI should change and setting the limits it runs inside. I ran it that way at United Way Worldwide.

AI in course production

AI course-production agents. United Way Worldwide, 2026

Faster drafting is worthless if expert review becomes the bottleneck.

Expert review was already taking 90 hours a course, so I redesigned the review along with the drafting. The agents I built work from United Way’s frameworks, learner personas and design standards, and they only draft: outlines, modules and job aids. A subject expert can reject or send back any draft, and the learning team checks every course against a rubric and acceptance criteria before it ships. Across 11 courses in 2026, expert review fell to 20 hours a course.

How the agents work

Drawn to scale, across 11 courses in 2026: each box is a week of build time, and each mark is an hour of a subject expert’s time.

Drawn to scale, across 11 courses in 2026: each box is a week, and each mark is an hour of a subject expert’s time.

Network learning platform

Learning platform and course catalog. United Way Worldwide

Every organization in the network chooses its own training, so the courses have to be worth choosing.

On a learning platform for a whole network, the hard part is stocking it with what people need, quickly. I built most of a 30-course catalog in English and Spanish myself, with a team of three learning experts on the rest, and almost every course ends with something the learner makes and takes back to work, such as a plan or a proposal. Then I brought in AI agents, so experts spent their time deciding instead of writing.

One mark per course, grouped by program. As of October 2026, 800+ of the network’s 1,100+ organizations use the platform.

AI curriculum

AI curriculum and use guide. United Way Worldwide

Staff had AI tools before there was an AI policy, and each organization in the network sets its own rules.

So I designed a ten‑course curriculum that opens with a piece of real work, and a use guide that asks two questions of every task: what am I giving the tool, and what happens if the answer is wrong? The guide clears low-risk work quickly and sends only consequential decisions to formal approval. I count over-caution as a failure too, so the target is that no more than 10% of safe tasks get wrongly blocked.

The curriculum and use guide

The use guide, with an example task in each tier. The red one uses only public information and still stops for approval, because of the decision it feeds.

Green

Summarize a published public report

Use it, and check the result.

Yellow

Draft an update from an internal plan

Approved tool, and a named person owns the draft.

Red

Rank partners for investment from their public websites

Stop for formal approval. It feeds a decision about organizations.

The use guide behind the chart at the top of this page. The red example uses only public information and still stops for approval, because of the decision it feeds.

Leadership programs

NuVuX, 2019 to 2024, and United Way Worldwide

Workshops taught me that good ideas stall without support to carry them out.

So I build leadership programs around a real problem from each leader’s own organization, and I measure finished plans ahead of satisfaction. At NuVuX, I led the development of an executive program that took leaders at Rolls‑Royce, Balfour Beatty, Plexus and Peak Scientific from their own problem to a prototype. At United Way, I led onboarding for new CEOs of the network’s independent organizations. It grew from a first cohort of 25 to 216 completions, and 95% of those CEOs finished a first-60-day plan.

See the programs

Onboarding for new CEOs. Each CEO writes their own plan, in blue, with peers who run organizations of a similar size.

Alf Studio

An AI product I designed and built, 2026

A teacher doesn’t need a unit for every classroom. She needs one for hers.

Alf is planning software for project-based teaching. A teacher enters a grade, a subject and an idea, and gets a full unit in under a minute that she can edit in place. Alf notices the edits she keeps making, but I kept those habits out of her future drafts unless she turns on a switch that’s off by default. I left out a chat screen and gave the database no field for student data.

The product story Open Alf

Alf StudioUnitsHelpDW

Done · 23 secondsGrade 6 · Science · 3 weeks

MS-PS3-3WHST.6-8.7

By mid-afternoon our blacktop is the hottest place on the block, hotter than the park across the street. Why, and what could we plant or build to cool the schoolyard before next summer?

Science · Grade 6 · 3 weeks · Drafted Oct 21

Cooling Our Schoolyard

How can we redesign our schoolyard to cool down our hottest outdoor spaces before next summer?

Edit unit

Saved. 1 change kept.

Week 1Ready

Map surface temperatures across the schoolyard and track how different materials absorb thermal energy.

Conduct the schoolyard surface temperature walk, log readings on varied surfaces, and build the initial class need-to-know board.
· 1 lesson
Run a controlled bench lab measuring how dark asphalt fragments, light concrete, sand, and shaded soil heat under heat lamps over time.
· 2 lessons
Analyze lab data in teams, graph temperature curves, and draw energy transfer diagrams showing solar radiation and surface conduction.
· 2 lessons

Deliverable

A completed thermal data sheet with a labeled energy transfer diagram of the schoolyard blacktop.

Supports

Provide bilingual graphic organizers for lab data tables; offer sentence frames for thermal energy explanations to students with writing accommodations; challenge fast finishers to calculate rate of temperature rise per minute for each material. Give every pair a sentence-starter card: “The hottest spot was ___ because ___.”

Added a scaffold · just now

Week 2Ready

Research cooling strategies and build a scaled prototype shade or greening design to test heat reduction.

Gather facts from local desert plant guides and shade cloth spec sheets to answer self-generated questions about cooling structures.
· 2 lessons
Sketch scaled design options for a chosen hot zone in the schoolyard using selected shade materials and native trees.
· 1 lesson
Build a tabletop scale model of the cooling design and test its interior temperature under a heat lamp against an unshaded control surface.
· 2 lessons

Deliverable

A scaled prototype model with heat-lamp test data showing thermal energy reduction.

Supports

Use visual vocabulary cards for plant types and shade structures; provide partially pre-scaled grid paper for drafting; invite extending students to test two competing shade materials simultaneously and compare cost estimates.

Week 3Ready

Refine the cooling proposal based on peer critique and present the final plan to school leaders.

Run a gallery walk critique where teams review draft cooling models and leave sticky notes on durability, shade coverage, and cost.
· 1 lesson
Revise the physical model or site layout using peer feedback and write a one-page summary explaining how the design stops heat transfer.
· 2 lessons
Present cooling proposals to the school facilities leader and principal, then write an individual reflection on the design process.
· 2 lessons

Deliverable

The finalized cooling proposal poster, scale model, and written design rationale.

Supports

Offer sentence starters for peer critique; allow oral explanation paired with bulleted visual summaries for students with modified output needs; encourage advanced groups to calculate square footage of total shade created at noon.

Critique and revisionReady

Final productReady

Rubric · 3 rows · 4 levelsReady

MaterialsReady

This is one recorded run: a three-week Grade 6 science unit, drafted in 23 seconds and sped up here. See the real run

Experience

United Way Worldwide

Director, Learning Product and AI Strategy

I ran learning and AI at the headquarters of a network of 1,100+ independent organizations in 36 countries, reporting to the executive office and the Chief Transformation Officer. I built its course catalog with a team of three learning experts, each working with subject experts.

NuVuX

Senior Director, Global Programs

Reporting to the CEO and Chief of Staff, I took NuVuX’s education programs from the UK into Europe, MENA and Australia with a team of 5. NuVuX’s revenue grew 173%, and innovation program enrollment grew from 60 to 615. In Scotland, I ran a multi-month engagement with the Minister for Education and a ministerial panel, and three Glasgow-area council schools adopted our programs. In 2023, I built early AI co-design tools for educators.

MIT Global Startup Workshop

Program Coordinator

I led the brand and platform redesign that drove 1,500+ registrations from entrepreneurs and investors.

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow

Learning and Engagement Designer

On an MIT research grant, I researched how visitors learn, which shaped content strategy and UX for multilingual audiences.

AI red and blue teaming

Alongside my roles, I’ve red-teamed and blue-teamed frontier AI models in health, looking for subtle harm that builds over a conversation.

MIT and SCI-Arc

MS in Design and Technology, MIT, on a full merit scholarship. Bachelor of Architecture, SCI-Arc. ATD Master Instructional Designer.

Ask

Ask an AI about my work

Answers come only from a published record of my work and cite the section they use. The assistant blocks any number that isn’t in the record, stores nothing you type, and is tested against 31 questions, including attempts to make it overclaim.

Contact

kyle@kylebranchesi.com