AI Strategy & Emerging Trends for Business Leaders

AI for Business Transformation Certificate 

Take a single AI course or complete all five four-week courses to earn the AI for Business Transformation Certificate. Designed for managers, working professionals, and non-technical learners, the program develops the practical skills and business judgment needed to apply AI effectively in business settings.

Participants learn to identify appropriate uses for AI, evaluate outputs, assess organizational readiness, manage risk, improve workflows, and guide responsible adoption. The courses emphasize methods and judgment that transfer across AI tools and platforms, helping participants build skills they can apply as technologies and products change.

Topics include AI foundations, marketing and customer experience, business operations, strategy, and AI-supported data analysis. No programming or technical background is required. Participants may take courses individually or complete the full certificate over one or more terms, depending on their schedule.

This Course: AI Strategy & Emerging Trends for Business Leaders

This course takes a leadership-level view of how organizations evaluate, adopt, govern, and scale artificial intelligence. Participants will learn how to connect AI initiatives to business strategy, identify high-value opportunities, prioritize investments, and build the organizational capabilities required for responsible and sustainable AI adoption.

Through applied activities and real-world business scenarios, participants will examine emerging AI technologies and business models, including generative AI, AI agents, automation, multimodal AI, and evolving human-AI operating models. The course emphasizes understanding the business implications of these technologies rather than their technical implementation.

Participants will learn how to evaluate AI opportunities based on strategic alignment, expected business value, feasibility, organizational readiness, customer and employee impact, risk, and investment requirements. The course will also explore how leaders can move beyond isolated pilots and individual experimentation toward coordinated AI portfolios, scalable capabilities, and enterprise-wide adoption.

Topics will include AI use-case prioritization, pilot design, business case development, build-versus-buy-versus-partner decisions, AI agent and capability portfolios, governance and responsible AI, organizational readiness, workforce transformation, change management, operating models, measurement, and pathways for scaling successful initiatives.

Participants will also examine leadership's role in shaping AI adoption across an organization, including establishing appropriate governance, defining human and AI responsibilities, developing workforce capabilities, encouraging responsible experimentation, and creating operating models that support innovation while managing risk.

The course will emphasize distinguishing meaningful AI capabilities from technology hype. Participants will learn how to assess emerging trends, determine their relevance to business strategy, and make informed decisions about when to experiment, invest, scale, partner, or wait.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to develop an AI strategy and transformation roadmap that identifies priority business opportunities, required capabilities, investment considerations, governance requirements, organizational dependencies, measures of success, and near- and longer-term priorities for AI adoption.

For any questions about course content, please contact the course instructor, Chelsey Potter, at chpotter@lasell.edu. Visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelseyplumb/ for more information.

This section of AI Strategy & Emerging Trends for Business Leaders runs December 12–January 12 during the Winter 2027 term. Students may enroll in the course through December 16.

For any questions about enrollment or Lasell Professional Studies, please contact profstudies@lasell.edu.