Welcome to AI Workbench

Glad you're here

AI Workbench is a guided workspace for taking a technology project from a rough idea to something real — with a Code for Canada expert alongside you at every step.

You bring what only you can: how your organization works, who it serves, and what's actually going wrong today. The workbench brings the method — a proven product management process, one activity at a time.

How it works

Every activity pairs a short lesson like this one with a conversation. Your phase expert interviews you, one question at a time, and together you produce an artifact: a real document that lands in your project, saved as a version you can revisit or roll back. Nothing you say gets lost, and nothing gets decided behind your back.

You'll move through four phases:

• Discovery — make sure you're solving the right problem, and explore your options.
• Alpha — test the riskiest assumptions quickly and cheaply.
• Beta — build the smallest realistic version and put it in front of real users.
• Live — launch it, measure it, and keep improving.

What's next

Say hello in the chat, and your Discovery expert will orient you. Then it's on to Defining success — getting clear on the outcome you want, which makes every decision after it easier.

Further Reading

• 18F Product Guide - Connect product vision, discovery, delivery, measurement, and sustainable government ownership.
• Designing good government services: an introduction - Defines good end-to-end services across channels, teams, technology, research, and measurement.
• How the discovery phase works - Explains how teams investigate problems, users, constraints, opportunities, and success measures before building.
• How the alpha phase works - Explains how teams prototype solutions and test their riskiest assumptions.
• How the beta phase works - Explains how teams build, release, learn from real users, and prepare for live operation.
• How the live phase works - Explains sustainable service operation, continuous research, measurement, and improvement.
• Government of Canada Digital Standards - Sets principles for user-centred, agile, open, accessible, secure, and collaborative service delivery.
• British Columbia Digital Code of Practice - Provides ten connected practices for designing, building, buying, and operating public digital services.
• Alberta Digital Service Standards - Defines lifecycle expectations for user needs, wider journeys, governance, metrics, and common platforms.
• 18F Methods - Provides practical government methods for discovery, decision-making, prototyping, and validation.