We Built This Because the Gap Was Too Big to Ignore
EmpowerED AI Learning is an AI education and strategy firm founded by two educators who got tired of watching workers get left behind while organizations raced to adopt AI."
Our Story
What We Believe
In 2025, Dr. Ericka Pitman and Katie Branley were watching the same thing unfold from different angles: organizations investing in AI strategy at the top while the people doing the actual work had no roadmap, no language, and no support.
They had both spent years in education and workforce development, training thousands of professionals, designing curriculum that actually sticks, and building learning experiences grounded in how adults really learn. They knew what good instruction looked like. And they knew this moment needed it.
So they built EmpowerED AI Learning, a South Carolina-based consulting firm focused on one thing: making sure real people, in real jobs, can actually use AI with confidence.
AI literacy is not a tech problem. It is a people problem. And people problems require skilled educators, not just software rollouts.
We believe every professional deserves to understand the tools reshaping their industry. We believe organizations that invest in genuine AI literacy outperform those that deploy tools and hope for the best. And we believe that when people are equipped with the right frameworks, the right language, and the right support, overwhelm turns into clarity, and clarity turns into confidence.
That is the future of work we are building toward. The moment when a professional who felt behind walks out of a session feeling capable, clear, and ready to lead.
Meet the Founders
Dr. Ericka M. Pitman, Ed.D.
Founder & Principal Consultant
Katie Branley, M.Ed.
Co-Founder & Principal Consultant
Dr. Ericka M. Pitman brings more than 18 years of experience across PK-12 education leadership, higher education instructional coaching, community college partnerships, nonprofit program scaling, and workforce development. She has designed and facilitated professional learning for more than 5,000 educators and workforce professionals nationwide and managed over $1.4 million in grant-funded programming. Her approach is research-grounded, equity-informed, and built to meet organizations where they are, without unnecessary hype.
Her work spans AI literacy curriculum development, adult learning design, STEAM integration, and technology-enhanced instruction. She partners across education and workforce sectors to develop scalable learning ecosystems aligned to emerging federal and state frameworks, including the U.S. Department of Labor AI Literacy guidance.
Dr. Pitman holds an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Management with a concentration in Creativity and Innovation from Drexel University, where she studied under Dr. Fredericka Reisman, a colleague of creativity pioneer E. Paul Torrance, and contributed published learning modules to the 2024 volume, Connecting Creativity and Motivation Research with End Users: Lab to Learner. She holds a Master's degree in Instructional Technology and maintains educator certifications in both New Jersey and South Carolina.
Katie Branley is a learning design practitioner with more than 20 years of experience in K-12 education, school administration, and professional development. After spending years in classrooms and district leadership, she pivoted to building AI literacy programs specifically for working professionals, not developers or early adopters, but the people who simply need to use AI well in their everyday roles.
EmpowerED AI Learning partners with technical colleges and employer groups across the country to deliver programs aligned with the U.S. Department of Labor AI Literacy Framework. Katie's approach is grounded in behavior change, not just tool instruction, and her sessions are known for being practical, participatory, and immediately applicable. She is based in the Upstate South Carolina region and is passionate about ensuring that the workforce AI is changing is also the workforce AI is serving.