Learning AI for Business Leaders

Hello Community,

For the better part of 2 months I have been reading up on everything in getting a better understanding of the fundamentals of AI - from history of AI to reading the Google 8’s peer reviewed paper on the advent of transformers. I feel as though I am running in circles at times an not following a guided path approach to learning.

I’m 40, work in international development in a leadership role - though I have a background in corporate finance and tech. I’m not an engineer, nor do I have the ambition of such a career pivot. However I do want to learn, be abreast, and know enough about the space when evaluating (and proposing) AI related opportunities - my role now should be a path towards a chief innovation officer for a development agency within the next 3-4 years.

My sources have been basically everything I can find from tech blogs, WaPo, financial times, economist, and random internet searches. I have completed IBM’s Fundamental on AI course. However, I feel there no structure in learning as I have been piecemealing from so many different sources. Essentially I care about business cases and being able to confidently talk about AI. And not building and deploying a product.

MIT and UPenn have some courses on AI for leaders, however, as the space is moving so fast I’m not confident how current their materials are.

My ask:

1. Are there any courses (or learning approaches) you recommend that is less-code and more focus on concept and applications I should do?
2. Is my approach to learning too broad and I should focus on a subset of AI such as ML or specifically GenAI since it seems most applications are currently byproducts of it.

Many thanks in advance for any support - truly appreciate it.