Kellogg Executive Education programs explore the frontiers of AI-driven business value

Written by Sachin Waikar

 

As the application of artificial intelligence accelerates across industries, the Kellogg School of Management’s open-enrollment Executive Education programs are equipping a rapidly growing number of leaders with the strategies and capabilities they need to drive real business value from AI.

Unprecedented demand for AI leadership

The numbers tell a compelling story. In the past year alone, more than 2,500 business leaders have enrolled in Kellogg’s flagship AI Strategies for Business Transformation online program, making it the largest open-enrollment program in Kellogg Executive Education’s recent history. That surge in demand reflects something beyond curiosity: executives and senior leaders are recognizing that AI fluency is no longer optional.

At the center of Kellogg’s comprehensive and integrative approach to AI is McCormick Foundation Chair of Technology and Clinical Professor of Marketing Mohan Sawhney. A globally recognized authority on AI for business growth and an early pioneer of online executive learning, Sawhney frames the mission simply: “My goal in bringing AI programs to business leaders is not to teach the ‘what’ of AI. It’s to teach the ‘so what’ and the ‘now what.’”

From Awareness to Transformation

Sawhney’s journey in AI executive education began in 2019 when he developed AI Applications for Growth in partnership with Varun Poddar ’13 MBA. Five years and several technology generations later, he recognized that the landscape had fundamentally shifted. The result was a reimagined curriculum: AI Strategies for Business Transformation, an eight-week online program that combines asynchronous learning with live interactive sessions, industry case studies and a capstone project. Participants, who include senior technology leaders, functional heads and department leaders, complete the program across six annual cohorts.

“I say to students, ‘I’m not teaching you technology. I’m teaching you a language,’” Sawhney explains. “We talk about what AI does, but the important thing is to convert it into business value. What are the use cases? How do you map AI to the entire enterprise value chain?”

As generative AI burst onto the scene, Sawhney moved quickly. He partnered with Clinical Professor of Marketing Jim Lecinski and Clinical Assistant Professor of Marketing Birju Shah to build a live-virtual program focused on generative AI, which debuted in July 2023, just months after ChatGPT launched. But the field was evolving faster than any curriculum could keep pace with. “We then had to pivot,” Sawhney says, “because the problem was no longer about generative AI but about getting real business value from AI at scale.”

Confronting the scale challenge

That insight led Sawhney and Shah to develop AI at Scale, a new open-enrollment program that debuted in February 2025. Delivered in a live-virtual format that blends the flexibility of remote learning with real-time peer engagement and networking, the program tackles a problem that most organizations are confronting head-on.

“The challenge is basically that AI isn’t delivering the goods,” Sawhney says. “Companies have multibillion-dollar AI investments and budgets, but they’re stuck doing pilots and proofs of concept. They can’t scale to the level where they’re getting meaningful impact, beyond a few exceptions like Amazon.”

A full spectrum of AI leadership programs

Kellogg’s commitment to preparing leaders for an AI-driven world extends well beyond a single option. The school now offers a full portfolio of open-enrollment AI programs, each targeting a distinct leadership need:

• AI Strategies for Business Transformation provides executives with a comprehensive framework for identifying, prioritizing and implementing AI use cases across the enterprise value chain.
• AI at Scale helps leaders move beyond pilots and proofs of concept to build the organizational capabilities, governance structures and operating models required to realize AI’s full potential.
• AI-Driven Product Strategy enables product leaders to harness AI across the entire product lifecycle, from discovery and design to launch and iteration.
• AI Marketing Leadership (launching in summer 2026) equips CMOs and senior marketing leaders with the operating architecture for marketing that generative AI and agentic AI now make possible.
• Leading with AI, with Kellogg Professors Eric Anderson and Florian Zettelmeyer, imparts a working knowledge of data science and equips leaders to apply AI and analytics to large-scale strategic challenges.
• Mastering Sales: The Digital and AI Toolkit for Success, with Clinical Professor of Marketing Craig Wortmann, is the latest evolution (relaunched February 2026) of one of Kellogg Executive Education’s top-enrolling online programs, now featuring refreshed content and a proven set of hands-on AI applications for sales leaders.

Kellogg Executive Education will continue to expand its AI-related offerings throughout 2026 and beyond.

From programs to partnerships

“Executives can think of these AI programs as an on-ramp, a way to set the stage and build critical skillsets,” Sawhney says. “Beyond these options are Kellogg custom programs, where we bring in your team and say, ‘How do we design something bespoke?’ It’s BYOBP: bring your own business problem. We go deeper, contextualize and solve your most pressing issues.”

“I really valued the balance between highlighting opportunities, including productivity gains, new hybrid roles and AI-powered collaboration, and acknowledging the challenges, such as equity, responsible deployment and continuous upskilling,” says Shashi Kumar Singh, Enterprise Architect with AWS. “AI Strategies for Business Transformation gave me clarity on what the future of work with AI might look like and how I can prepare for it.”

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