The future of work is a design choice.

We help nonprofits and mission-driven organizations understand how AI is changing their work, redesign workflows and responsibilities with people at the centre, and prove what actually creates value, in focused three-week sprints.

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One November spot left · Two open in December

Example redesign board for a client intake workflow. Six tasks each receive a decision: re-keying a referral is eliminated, three approvals are simplified to one, checking eligibility criteria and drafting the intake summary are AI-augmented, the eligibility decision is kept human, and reminders are automated. The workflow is redrawn from six steps to five, with one step kept human.

AI adoption is not the same as work transformation.

A new tool can make one task faster while the process around it stays slow. Handoffs, duplicated approvals and unclear ownership remain, and AI can add review work and exceptions of its own. We start with the work and the outcome, not with a tool.

Two workflows compared. When an AI tool is added to an unchanged workflow, work piles up at the handoffs. When the work is redesigned, it flows, and a person decides at the step that matters.

Four services. Use one on its own, or follow the path.

Decide where to act, redesign the work, prove the value, then reshape the organization around it. Every service is a three-week sprint with a visible result.

1 · Decide

Aati

Workforce & AI Transformation Intelligence

What is changing, and where should we act?

Example opportunity map ranking three workflows: intake triage to act on now, grant reporting next, volunteer scheduling to watch.

Understand how AI changes your work, workforce and capacity, and decide where to invest first. Arriving with a specific AI idea? Aati can focus on validating that one idea.

In three weeks: a decision-ready roadmap, with one priority chosen.

Explore Aati

2 · Redesign

WorkRedesign Lab

Work, Role & Organizational Redesign

How should the work change?

Example workflow before and after redesign: six steps become four, with one step deliberately kept human.

Map one workflow with the people who do it, decide what should happen to each task, and test the new design together.

In three weeks: one workflow redesigned and tried with your staff.

Explore WorkRedesign Lab

3 · Realize

OpenBuild

AI Solution Delivery & Workforce Value Realization

Does the change create real value, and how do we scale it?

Example value review: baseline measured, controls and approvals in place, results compared to baseline, leading to a decision to scale, modify, pause or stop.

Put one redesigned change to work with your staff, measure its value honestly against a baseline, and plan what it takes to scale it across your organization.

In three weeks: proven value, and a plan to scale it.

Explore OpenBuild

4 · Reorganize

FutureOrg Studio

Organizational Design & Agentic Workforce Design

How should our organization be structured to sustain the change?

Example team design: a team lead and four people, with two AI agents added, each overseen by a named person.

Co-design one team’s future structure with its people: roles, human–agent work allocation, decision rights and oversight. Designed with your people, not for them.

In three weeks: one team’s future structure, designed with its people.

Explore FutureOrg Studio

↩ FutureOrg Studio closes the loop: each new structure feeds the next round of Aati.

Every service is a three-week Nest Sprint.

Fixed scope, fixed price and a visible result. Responsible by design, and every sprint ends in a clear decision.

Week 1

Understand

We map the work, the data and the people involved, with your team in the room.

Week 2

Design or build

We prioritize, redesign, build or co-design, with controls and oversight built in from the start.

Week 3

Decide

We share the result and agree the next step: proceed, refine, choose a simpler path, or stop.

Responsible by design

A named person stays accountable for every consequential decision
Controls match the risk of each task
Data and privacy are considered from day one
Workforce impact is planned, not left as an afterthought

Legal, privacy-law and cybersecurity reviews are outside our scope. Where needed, we work alongside your advisors or specialist partners.

Where to start

Just exploring AI? Start with Aati.
Know which workflow is struggling? Start with WorkRedesign Lab.
Have a redesigned change ready to prove? Start with OpenBuild.
Already using AI or agents, and the structure hasn’t caught up? Start with FutureOrg Studio.

People stay accountable. AI gets a defined role.

In every service, before anything changes, we decide how much each task should be left to AI, and which controls keep a named person accountable.

Assisted

AI recommends, drafts or analyzes. A person reviews or approves anything consequential.

Typical controls: named approver, recorded rationale, audit trail, escalation.

Supervised

AI performs bounded tasks while people monitor and step in on exceptions.

Typical controls: permissions, exception thresholds, monitoring, human override.

Autonomous

AI handles routine, low-consequence, reversible tasks within defined limits.

Typical controls: scoped permissions, logs, anomaly detection, periodic audit.

A starting aid, not a universal risk classification. Every use case is assessed for its consequences, reversibility, data sensitivity and impact on employment.

What collaborators say

“What I liked best about working with Mahsa was her determination to complete the task. … She believes in Agile project management and creates a product owner for everything, which has greatly aided us in getting the project running smoothly.”

Mai Thai
Director of Social Business Creation, HEC Montréal

“Hossein is a highly motivated and qualified professional with experience in all aspects of his work strategies, he is able to interpret even the most complex instructions. He is already a resource for the people in his department.”

Donya Hafezi Haghani
Former colleague of Hossein

“It is rare to find a leader who can bridge the gap between complex AI systems and the lived experiences of everyday professionals as effectively as Mahsa.”

Dr. Stefania Pecore
AI strategy and AI literacy advisor

“Mahsa’s approach to conflict resolution is truly admirable; she has a unique talent for bringing a sense of calm to challenging conversations, ensuring that every voice is heard and valued.”

Walace Esperidião
Business Analyst, HEC Montréal project team

Organizations we’ve worked with

HEC Montréal · Social Business Creation

Bright Ones Academy

EDIFSOL Business School

Let’s not just prepare people for the future of work. Let’s redesign it, this time with people at the centre.

Our six values arranged around people at the centre: work-centred, human-accountable, evidence-led, outcome-focused, practical and modular.

Work-centred. Start with the work and the problem, not a tool.

Human-accountable. Make decision rights and oversight explicit.

Evidence-led. Separate facts, assumptions, estimates and measured results.

Outcome-focused. Connect every engagement to a decision or an operational result.

Practical. Turn insight into designs, experiments and implementation decisions.

Modular. Each service stands alone and connects to the others.

Two arcs, one nest

Sixteen years ago, we started a life together. Along the way, Intelligent Nest began as an idea between us, and for the past four and a half years it has grown with us here in Canada.

Look closely at our logo and you’ll find us in it: two arcs, side by side, holding something together at the centre. That’s how we work. Hossein brings deep experience in business transformation, so he leads Aati and WorkRedesign Lab. Mahsa brings an entrepreneur’s instinct for building and testing, as well as expertise in human-focused workforce intelligence, so she leads OpenBuild and FutureOrg Studio. We meet in the middle, in the redesign.

And then there are our two kids, the reason we do any of this. The future of work is being written right now. We’d rather help write it, so the world they inherit has more room for people, not less.

Mahsa Rezaei

Co-founder & Executive Director · Leads OpenBuild and FutureOrg Studio

Mahsa brings 14 years of experience in business analysis, process re-engineering and transformation. She began with a practical question: how can we make work work better? She learned to see processes as systems of tasks, decisions and handoffs, and to find where work gets stuck. Becoming a mother in 2019 led her into entrepreneurship, to founding Her Future Ready, a complementary initiative helping women navigate the changing world of work, and to her TEDx talk, “Future-Proofing Women, Starting with Moms.” At Intelligent Nest, she brings those two worlds together: process redesign and human agency. Her guiding principle: don’t start with AI. Start with the work, then the people behind it.

Featured in CityNews · CBC Radio · Executives Diary

Mahsa on LinkedIn

Hossein Tanouri

Co-founder · Leads Aati and WorkRedesign Lab

Hossein works at the intersection of business strategy, technology, operations and organizational change. For more than 18 years, he has helped organizations turn problems and opportunities into technology-enabled solutions, align stakeholders, and deliver measurable outcomes. He leads transformation from intake and business case through design, delivery, adoption and post-launch improvement, across claims, finance, logistics, trade and customer service. His strength is translating between business and technology, connecting people and systems.

DBA · MSc Industrial Engineering · PMP · PMI-PBA · Scrum Master · Six Sigma Green Belt

Hossein on LinkedIn