Course Syllabus

• Course 1: The State of AI for Retail & CPG

  This course provides a foundational understanding of how AI is transforming retail and CPG. You will examine the traditional human-centered model, explore the forces accelerating change, and learn how the emerging AI-native landscape differs in its workflows, economics, and sources of value. You will leave this course with a clear understanding of the opportunities and threats AI presents, and the opportunity to reflect on your place within this new landscape.

  What You’ll Learn

  This course will teach you how to:

  • Identify the core components of the traditional retail model and the historical role of humans in creating value.
  • Describe the key forces driving rapid AI-driven change in retail and CPG, including accelerating capabilities, adoption data, and bellwether examples.
  • Analyze how the emerging AI-native paradigm differs from the traditional retail model in terms of workflows, value creation, and economics.
  • Evaluate how AI-driven changes create risks and opportunities for individuals, teams, and organizations across retailers and CPGds.
  • Create a concise personal reflection that summarizes the industry’s AI-driven changes and outlines your top opportunities, threats, and commitment to becoming AI-forward.

• Course 2: The Future of Retail

  This course examines the strategic shifts reshaping retail and CPG. You will come away understanding how AI is altering discovery, operations, and value creation, and how your company and career need to change in order to navigate those shifts.

  What You’ll Learn

  This course will teach you how to:

  • Define the purpose of an AI-forward strategic playbook and explain how it shifts the focus from understanding AI disruption to responding to it.
  • Describe core strategic shifts in retail and CPG by contrasting the old way of operating with the emerging AI-forward approaches, supported by relevant data and examples.
  • Analyze the implications of each strategic shift for pricing, workflows, value delivery, competitive advantage, talent development, and organizational culture.
  • Evaluate your organization’s current position on each strategic shift by rating yourself as lagging, adapting, or leading.
  • Answer key strategic questions for any shift where you are lagging or adapting to determine your most important areas for improvement.

• Course 3: Finding Your AI Advantage in Retail

  This course is a step-by-step walkthrough of how to identify use cases for AI and problems that can be solved in a smarter way using AI. You will use the Use Case Model to unbundle tasks using JobsGPT and CampaignsGPT, and the Problem-Based Model to articulate top strategic problems using ProblemsGPT. By the end, you will have built your foundational AI action blueprint: a prioritized list of quick-win pilot projects and strategic problem statements.

  What You’ll Learn

  This course will teach you how to:

  • Describe how the Use Case Model functions as a bottom-up framework for identifying AI opportunities and why unbundling tasks reveals quick-win pilot projects.
  • Apply the Use Case Model by using JobsGPT and CampaignsGPT to unbundle your own role or workflow and enter the outputs into the Piloting AI Use Case Workbook.
  • Analyze and prioritize the use cases you generated by applying the workbook criteria for impact, effort, feasibility, and exposure.
  • Describe how the Problem-Based Model functions as a top-down framework and explain how ProblemsGPT supports the creation of strong strategic problem statements.
  • Create a preliminary AI action blueprint by completing both the Piloting AI Use Case Workbook and the Problem-Based Workbook to determine the highest-value starting points for implementation.

• Course 4: Applied AI for Retail

  This course teaches you how to navigate the AI technology landscape and select tools that align with your workflows and use cases. You will learn the Three Tiers of AI Technology framework and look at examples from existing enterprise platforms to AI-native disrupters. You will also get a behind-the-scenes look at core AI skills such as high-context prompting, deep research, grounding AI in your documents, and building reusable custom agents.

  What You’ll Learn

  This course will teach you how to:

  • Describe the core challenge of navigating the AI technology landscape and explain the purpose of the Three Tiers of AI Technology framework.
  • Explain the role and value of each tier as a practical system for prioritizing and selecting technologies, providing examples of each.
  • Interpret key evaluation criteria using examples from a curated set of industry-specific AI tools to understand how to vet technology effectively.
  • Explain the value of essential implementation skills like creating high-context prompts, conducting deep research, grounding an AI assistant in your own documents, and building a reusable custom agent.
  • Apply the Three Tiers framework and your hands-on skills to complete a preliminary implementation plan by mapping tools to your prioritized use cases.

• Final Exam

  Upon successful completion, you will earn a Professional Certificate for the AI for Retail & CPG course series.