Learning Claude in Bucharest: Inside the First Night of Our In-Person AI Course

We were supposed to finish at 9:15pm.

At 9:45pm, nobody had left.

(One person slipped out at 9:40 — only because they had somewhere else to be.)

That was the kickoff of the 3rd Space AI Circle, our in-person AI course in Bucharest. And somewhere in those extra thirty minutes, I watched a room full of people realise Claude was a lot more than a chat box.

Drinks first, laptops second

We started the way every 3rd Space night starts: drinks and icebreakers on the terrace at A46.

Then we moved inside. Laptops open. Ana Toniuc's screen up on the TV.

Most people in the room had used Claude before. But nearly all of them used it the same way. Ask a question, get an answer, close the tab.

“Wait, it can connect to my Gmail?”

Then we opened the connectors.

You could see it land on people's faces.

“Wait, it can connect to my Gmail?”

“My calendar too?”

“Google Drive? Notion?”

One person had never heard of Notion. When they saw they could connect it to Claude and have Claude build them a database, their eyes lit up. Their words: “That alone was worth the entire program.”

Only one person in the room had used Wispr Flow. By the end of the night, a lot of people had downloaded it. Turns out people really like the idea of just talking to Claude.

Building a Claude skill from a Google Doc

Then we built a skill.

I used my own podcast workflow as the example. Every step, written down: the email I send the guest the day before, the research, the interview questions, the episode description. I put it all in a Google Doc, handed it to Claude, and turned it into a skill.

Watching people realise they could do the same thing with their own work was the best part of the night.

Why an in-person AI course works

Here's what stuck with me.

None of this is secret. There are a thousand Claude tutorials online.

But nobody stays thirty minutes late for a tutorial.

People stay when they're sitting next to someone who just had the same “oh wow” moment. When they can lean over and ask, “Wait — how did you do that?”

Learning AI is a lot less lonely, and a lot more fun, in a room full of people figuring it out together.

Thank you to everyone who came, stayed late, and said thank you on the way out. That meant a lot.

Want to learn Claude with a small group in Bucharest? See how the 3rd Space AI Circle works.