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Multi-course series

AI-Driven Leadership and Futures Thinking

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DURATION

12 weeks, Online

PRICE

Get US$500 off with a referral

FOR TEAMS

Enroll your team and learn with your peers

Benefit from 15% off when you enroll in both courses

The AI-Driven Leadership and Futures Thinking multi-course series gives you access to two complementary standalone Stanford Online courses at 15% off the total course fee when you enroll in both courses. Build the capabilities to lead AI initiatives across your organization while strengthening strategic foresight for an uncertain future. Learn how to assess organizational readiness, lead AI transformation, apply scenario planning, and make more informed long-term strategic decisions. Together, these courses provide a multidisciplinary perspective on AI leadership and futures thinking to help organizations anticipate change and adapt with confidence.
AI-Driven Leadership: Strategies for the Future

AI-Driven Leadership: Strategies for the Future

Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making

Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making

What you will learn

AI-Driven Leadership: Strategies for the Future

  • Identify how leaders create the conditions for effective development of generative AI, agentic AI, and predictive analytics capabilities.

  • Develop a plan to create those conditions, including anticipating likely barriers and strategies for success.

  • Assess organizational data readiness for AI and promote a culture of data excellence

  • Understand how to configure workflows across these technologies, including reskilling needs and change management.

  • Design and implement workflows and assess their impact.

  • Assess the evolving role of managers and their responsibilities in the context of increasing reliance on AI technologies.

Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making

  • Develop the ability to scan the horizon, identify weak signals, and spot emerging trends shaping industries and societies.

  • Use scenario planning, storytelling, and world-building techniques to move beyond the “official future” and imagine a range of diverse possibilities.

  • Use artifacts to create a tangible image of the future and help others imagine and understand it with you.

  • Use storytelling and narrative to help paint a picture of the future that will recruit team members and advocates.

  • Integrate futures thinking into long-term strategy, leadership practices, and organizational culture to foster adaptability and sustained relevance.

Learner outcomes

AI-Driven Leadership: Strategies for the Future

  • Apply structured frameworks to evaluate AI opportunities across your organization.

  • Develop a practical roadmap for implementing AI systems and capabilities.

  • Assess readiness across people, processes, data, and governance.

  • Lead teams through AI-driven transformation and operational change

  • Design workflows that integrate generative AI and ML effectively.

  • Make stronger strategic decisions in rapidly evolving AI environments.

Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making

  • Make more informed strategic decisions in a complex business environment.

  • Identify emerging signals and assess their impact on your business strategy.

  • Apply scenario planning to evaluate multiple future outcomes.

  • Develop future-focused strategies aligned to long-term business goals.

  • Strengthen your ability to lead with confidence amid uncertainty and change.

Who will benefit?

AI-Driven Leadership: Strategies for the Future

  • Mid- to senior-level executives, including CEOs, CTOs, and leaders with decision-making authority, who want to integrate AI into their organizations

  • Digital transformation managers and other managers leading organizational digital initiatives who seek to adapt their leadership capabilities for the digital era

  • Entrepreneurs and business owners looking to implement AI strategies in their organizations

  • Leaders of data teams seeking to increase their impact within their organization by employing various AI tools and systems

Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making

  • Leaders and executives seeking to enhance their strategic foresight capabilities and strengthen long-term decision-making

  • Managers and decision-makers looking for proactive, adaptive approaches to planning and strategy in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments

  • Professionals aiming to build anticipatory leadership skills to identify emerging opportunities and embrace complexity

  • Individuals seeking to develop resilience, curiosity, and adaptability in the face of rapid change and disruption

  • Professionals focused on strategy, long-term planning, or innovation management who want to move beyond traditional methods and develop future-ready practices

Syllabus

Duration: 6 weeks | Instructor: Melissa Valentine

Modules:

01 How leaders create conditions for effective integration of predictive analytics

Understand the leadership actions that drive adoption and effective use of predictive analytics tools.

  • Illustrate leadership activities that foster effective implementation of predictive analytics tools and how they influence team members' adoption and utilization of these tools

  • Assess current frameworks, organizational structures, and evaluation methods for predictive analytics

  • Develop a new framework, propose a novel organizational structure for AI implementation, and outline innovative evaluation procedures for AI initiatives

02 How leaders create conditions for effective integration of generative AI and agentic AI

Learn how leaders guide the successful implementation of generative AI systems across teams and workflows. Learners will also explore the distinction between agentic and non-agentic systems, including their implications for governance, scaling, and organizational design.  

  • Describe differences between predictive analytics and generative AI, including differing risks and opportunities

  • Summarize leaders’ activities that foster effective generative AI implementation and how they shape team members’ adoption and use of these tools

  • Evaluate existing framing, structuring, and evaluation schemes for generative AI

  • Create new framing for a generative AI strategy, draw up a new proposal for AI structuring, and define new AI evaluation processes

  • Understand maturity models for generative and agentic AI adoption, from experimentation to enterprise-scale systems

03 Creating a culture of data excellence

Strong AI systems require strong data foundations.

  • Evaluate your current organizational data culture, focusing on issues related to data quality, misuse, silos, integration, and governance

  • Assess organizational data readiness for generative AI

  • Formulate a governance, compliance, and ethical framework for sustaining high-quality, well-governed data

04 Configuring workflows and decisions for machine learning (ML)

Understand how ML changes processes, workflows, and decision-making.

  • Discover the different ways that ML workflows are configured

  • Predict when a change process or tool is likely to produce resistance or adoption

  • Plan or design an ML workflow

05 Configuring workflows for generative AI and agentic AI

Explore how modern AI systems can be embedded into day-to-day operations.

  • Understand the different ways in which generative AI workflows are configured

  • Recognize essential evaluation practices for generative AI workflows

  • Plan or design a generative AI workflow

06 How the work of managers will change in the age of AI

Examine how leadership roles evolve when AI becomes part of management systems.

  • Examine how managers are using AI to design organizations, focusing on AI’s role in decision-making, structuring information flows, and coordinating resources

  • Describe the risks and opportunities associated with algorithmic management

  • Conceptualize a tool to aid in an organizational or managerial function

Duration: 6 weeks | Instructor: Lisa Kay Solomon

Modules:

01 How to lead and make decisions through increasingly uncertain times

  • Recognize why futures thinking is emerging as a critical strategic capacity for navigating change, uncertainty, and complexity

  • Identify how futures thinking helps leaders engage more effectively with volatility and ambiguity

02 How to take the long view when the short term can feel overwhelming

  • Understand the core elements of long-term thinking

  • Understand how the "official futures" developed by organizations can be expanded to incorporate multiple perspectives and futures

  • Apply the futures cone framework to your own area of work

03 How to widen your field of view so you don’t get blindsided

  • Distinguish between internal and external forces impacting your organization and shaping outcomes

  • Apply the STEEP model to conduct horizon scanning and trend identification

  • Use tools like the futures wheel to explore ripple effects of external forces

04 How to use stories to better understand the future

  • Use storytelling and narrative as tools to communicate compelling futures

  • Explore world-building, science fiction, and experiential futures as strategic tools

  • Examine how imagination drives strategy and inspires organizational innovation

05 How to make our visions of possible futures concrete

  • Understand the history and practice of scenario planning as a foresight tool

  • Apply visual frameworks such as the rapid 2x2 to test critical uncertainties

  • Develop and share scenarios that prepare organizations for the unknown

06 How to integrate futures into organizational processes for the long haul

  • Embed foresight practices into organizational planning and culture

  • Strengthen teams and processes with futures-oriented frameworks

  • Design strategic conversations that turn foresight into sustained impact

Capstone projects

Capstone project: Planning AI implementation for organizational impact 

In the capstone project, you will apply the core frameworks to plan the implementation of an AI capability within an organization. You will identify and prioritize high-impact use cases, assess organizational readiness, and evaluate the potential impact on workflows, teams, and business performance. Using the leadership strategies explored throughout the course, you will examine likely barriers to adoption, define approaches for change management and reskilling, and outline the governance conditions required for successful execution. Through this capstone, you will strengthen your ability to lead AI transformation initiatives while applying practical frameworks to real-world organizational challenges.

Capstone project: Shaping strategy for an uncertain future 

This course includes a futures-focused capstone project where you will apply scenario planning, horizon scanning, big-picture thinking, and world-building to a strategic challenge from your own organization or sector. Rather than working on hypothetical case studies, you will build a future-informed perspective grounded in your real business context and competitive landscape, exploring multiple possible futures, testing assumptions, and identifying the signals that matter most.

By the end of the course, you will have translated foresight into a clear, actionable strategic direction, equipping you to make more confident decisions in an uncertain business environment.

Frameworks, methods and tools you will use

AI-Driven Leadership: Strategies for the Future 

  • Frameworks to assess organizational readiness for AI adoption

  • Methods to evaluate data quality, governance, and implementation readiness

  • Approaches to identify high-value AI opportunities across workflows and functions

  • Change management frameworks to support AI integration and organizational adoption

  • Leadership strategies for implementing predictive analytics, generative AI, and emerging AI technologies

  • Structured approaches for evaluating risks, opportunities, and long-term organizational impact

Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making

  • Horizon scanning methods to identify emerging trends, weak signals, and potential disruptions

  • The Futures Cone framework to explore multiple possible futures and expand long-term thinking

  • The STEEP model to assess social, technological, economic, environmental, and political forces shaping future outcomes

  • Futures Wheel techniques to explore the ripple effects and long-term implications of change

  • Scenario planning and rapid 2x2 frameworks to test critical uncertainties and develop future-ready strategies

  • Storytelling, world-building, future artifacts, and experiential futures to translate foresight into strategic action and organizational alignment

Highlights

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Learn from Stanford faculty whose expertise spans AI leadership, organizational transformation, strategic foresight, and futures thinking.

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Develop expertise across AI leadership and strategic foresight through two complementary Stanford Online courses.

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Apply concepts through practical exercises, discussions, future-focused activities, and applied projects.

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Learn with an AI tutor that provides personalized support and guidance throughout your learning experience.

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Work with proven frameworks for AI adoption, organizational readiness, change management, governance, horizon scanning, scenario planning, strategic foresight, storytelling, world-building, and long-term strategic decision-making.

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Earn a Stanford Online Certificate of Achievement for each course successfully completed.

Meet your instructors

STF Faculty Lisa Kay Solomon

Lisa Kay Solomon

Futurist in Residence and Lecturer, Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, Stanford University

Lisa Kay Solomon is a futurist in residence and lecturer at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (known informally as the Stanford d.school), where she leads futures ...

STF-Faculty-Michael-Bernstein.webp

Melissa Valentine

Associate Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University

Melissa Valentine is an associate professor at Stanford University in the Department of Management Science and Engineering and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Hu...

Certificates of Achievement from Stanford Online

Certificates of Achievement from Stanford Online

All learners who successfully complete both courses will be awarded two Stanford Online Certificates of Achievement, one for AI-Driven Leadership: Strategies for the Future and one for Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making, recognizing proficiency in the course material.

The Certificate of Achievement for each course will be issued in a digital badge format, verified on the blockchain. The digital badge format allows you to share your accomplishments with your network, verify your credentials to employers, and communicate the scope of your acquired expertise.

4 CEU-equivalent for each course completed.

The Continuing Education Unit (CEU) is defined as 10 contact hours of ongoing learning to indicate the amount of time they have devoted to a non-credit/non-degree professional development course.

Learner testimonials

Overall, I found the course very valuable, especially in how it connected strategy, organizational change, and practical workflow transformation. The focus on augmentation, experimentation, and adoption challenges was particularly strong, and helped connect AI leadership to real business contexts. I particularly enjoyed the course structure, the frameworks leveraged, the webinars, and the office hours....
Eleonora O'Connor
Principal International Growth Consultant-EMEA Agency Partners, Google Ireland
Past learner in AI-Driven Leadership
The AI-Driven Leadership program provided a comprehensive roadmap for navigating the complexities of emerging technologies. The leadership levers of framing, structuring, and evaluating gave me a clear, actionable language for management and transformed AI from a technical black box into a strategic leadership priority. The distinction between engaged augmentation and automation was especially valuable, reinforcing that experts must interrogate AI results rather than blindly accept them....
Apiwut Pimolsaengsuriya
Founding Partner, Slingshot Group
Past learner in AI-Driven Leadership
The most significant skill I gained from this course was the ability to think more strategically under uncertainty by considering multiple plausible futures rather than relying on one expected path. It helped me move beyond linear planning and become more attentive to assumptions, early signals of change, and the need to make decisions that are flexible and resilient in uncertain contexts. The most valuable aspects of the course for me were learning to think beyond one expected future, to work with uncertainty more deliberately, and to question the assumptions behind current strategies. It helped me see that strategic decision-making is not only about improving forecasts, but also about exploring multiple plausible futures, identifying early signals of change, and preparing for disruption before it becomes a crisis. I found this especially valuable because it challenged my usual evaluation mindset, which is often grounded in evidence from the past and present, and encouraged me to complement that rigor with imagination, anticipation, and longer-term thinking....
Joseph Mouanda
Chief Evaluation Officer, African Development Bank
Past learner in Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making

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Frequently asked questions

No prior technical experience with AI or programming is required. A basic understanding of organizational operations, leadership, strategy, and digital technologies will help learners engage more effectively with topics related to AI leadership, organizational transformation, and strategic foresight.

This multi-course series offers access to two standalone courses at up to 15% off the total fee. Each course can be completed independently and awards it own Stanford Online Certificate of Achievement. Enrolling in both courses allows you to build complementary skills while benefiting from a bundled course fee.

Yes. Upon successful completion of both courses, you will earn two Stanford Online Certificates of Achievement, one for AI-Driven Leadership: Strategies for the Future and one for Futures Thinking for Strategic Decision-Making. Each certificate is issued as a digital credential that can be shared with employers and professional networks.

This course is designed to be equivalent to 4 Continuing Education Units (CEUs). To earn formal CEU credits, you would need to submit this certificate to your relevant professional licensing board, employer, or accrediting organization, as requirements vary by profession and jurisdiction. We recommend checking with your specific credentialing body regarding their acceptance of our certificate for CEU credit before enrolling.

Applicable taxes will be calculated and added at checkout in accordance with country, state, and local regulations.

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