AI Foundations for Business Professionals

An introduction to business uses of AI, including generative models, agents and governance.

Curriculum

AI Essentials: capabilities and limits of machine learning.
Generative and Agentic AI: prompting, retrieval, emerging agent systems.
AI Governance: responsible deployment and organisational risk.

Before you start

No technical background required.

Who it suits

Our assessment, based on the syllabus.

Operations or functional manager

Assess which workflows merit an AI pilot.

Business analyst or consultant

Connect AI capabilities to an organisational problem.

Executive starting with AI

Ask better questions about proposals and risk.

Expected outcomes

Assess a proposed AI use case and its risks.
Discuss model capabilities with technical colleagues.
Practise applying strategy and governance concepts to scenarios.

Example application

Assess a proposed customer-support assistant before funding a pilot.

Limits

Not an engineering or end-to-end automation bootcamp.
No university academic credit; introductory for experienced AI users.

How current is it?

The current syllabus explicitly includes agentic AI, retrieval and model evaluation. No lesson-by-lesson update date is published.

When to choose it

Consider this if you want a low-cost business introduction with agent and governance coverage. If you already know the basics, compare the agentic course within the specialisation.

Sources

Course, curriculum and credential ↗www.coursera.org
Oxford confirms the offering ↗www.sbs.ox.ac.uk
Coursera Plus pricing ↗www.coursera.org

Checked 20 October 2026. Confirm the current offer on the provider’s page before paying.