The decade that
separates the field.

Most organisations are attempting to close this gap with one-day workshops and generic vendor training. Most of that training fades within three months. The gap between organisations that have genuinely embedded AI as a working practice and those that have merely introduced it is widening every quarter.

That gap is why Darla AI exists. And it is why the methodology is built around permanent behavioural change — not demos, not certificates that do not change how anyone works on a Tuesday afternoon.

Thirty years.
Fourteen markets.

David Ward is a British commercial professional based in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, with thirty years of senior sales and distribution experience across Asia Pacific. Before Darla AI, his career was built in some of the most commercially demanding environments in APAC — managing regional distribution, building brand presence in complex markets, and delivering revenue outcomes where the numbers are the only measure that matters.

That background is not incidental to Darla AI. It is what makes the training different. The frameworks are tested against real commercial work, not academic scenarios. The case studies are from real clients. The outcomes are measured, not asserted.

Three years.
Daily practice.

David has used AI as a daily working practice since early 2024 — not as an experiment, but as a core part of how commercial work gets done. The Darla Method emerged within the first two weeks of using ChatGPT in earnest, refined through experimentation, and was being taught publicly from late spring 2024 onward. Conversation-led, relationship-led, persona-led from the first build. The Method came from the work, not from a course or a textbook.

When Anthropic published the AI Fluency Framework — the four Ds — months later, the alignment with what was already being taught was so complete that the first Anthropic Academy course was completed without working through the course material at all. The framework recognised the practice rather than introducing it. Read why the persona-led entry move matters →

Eight Anthropic Academy courses completed, with seven certificates issued — including the academically co-badged AI Fluency Framework programme developed in partnership with University College Cork, Ringling College of Art and Design, the Higher Education Authority of Ireland, and the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. The certificates confirm the practice. The practice came first.