Program Details
The Hybrid Master of Applied AI for Business Transformation is built for professionals who don't want to wait. From your first class, you'll work with AI tools and frameworks applied to real business challenges, building capabilities that grow with your career and keep pace with the technology.
The program is structured so that every concept connects directly to your work and the further you go, the more you can do. Most AI programs teach you how the technology works. This one teaches you what to do with it.
You'll learn to embed AI as a core driver across strategy, operations, and decision-making, improving performance at every level of your organization. The curriculum moves through three interconnected areas: Agentic AI and Intelligent Prompting, AI-Driven Business Analytics, and AI-Enabled Business Transformation—taking you from understanding AI concepts to driving real outcomes in your organization.
Every course in the curriculum is structured for direct application through Smeal's Future-Ready AI Framework, so what you learn on Tuesday can show up in your work by Thursday. You'll build strategic frameworks that remain useful as AI platforms evolve, while developing fluency in the cross-cutting realities of working with AI: responsible use, change management, and the broader impact of AI across industries.
The Hybrid MAAIBT is delivered in a format that fits around your life. You'll move through the program as a cohort—a group of peers who are navigating the same professional moment you are. Brief on-campus immersions at the start of each fall and spring semester give the relationships room to develop, and live virtual classes keep the momentum going between residencies. You'll graduate with more than a degree. You'll have a network of people who understand exactly what you're trying to do, because they're doing it too.
Why the Hybrid MAAIBT?
- Apply AI From Day One: Every course connects directly to your current work. You'll use AI tools in your role while building strategic capabilities that hold their value as technology evolves.
- Future-Ready Learning: The program is built around frameworks and decision-making approaches that remain useful as AI tools change, so your skills stay relevant as platforms evolve.
- Employer-Informed Curriculum: The program was developed in collaboration with employers to reflect the AI skills they're actively hiring for, so every course is grounded in what the market actually needs.
- Cohort-Based Classes: You'll move through the program with the same group of peer professionals: people in the same career moment, navigating the same challenges. Those relationships don't end at graduation.
- Hybrid Format: Combine the flexibility of remote learning with the energy of in-person connection through brief on-campus immersions each semester that strengthen the cohort experience.
- Program Structure: The program begins in August and spans two years. Each semester opens with a 2.5-day on-campus residency, then continues with live virtual classes and coursework scheduled outside of business hours.
- Best-in-Class Technology: Live synchronous classes taught from purpose-built studio classrooms deliver the presence and connection of residential learning without the commute.
- Experiential Learning: Every challenge is real. You'll bring actual business problems into the classroom and leave with actual solutions you can implement.
- Student Success First: Our dedicated student success team ensures you get the most out of the program.
- 800K+ Business Partners: When you graduate, you join one of the most expansive professional networks in the world. With 96,000+ Smeal alumni and 800K+ Penn State graduates across every industry, you'll always have someone in your corner.
Capstone Project: Your AI Transformation in Action
The capstone is where two years of applied learning becomes something you can show. You'll design and implement a full AI-driven solution to a complex business challenge, integrating agentic AI, intelligent prompting, and analytics into real workflows, operations, or strategy. The result isn't a theoretical exercise. It's a tangible, real-world deliverable that you can speak to in your next performance review, promotion conversation, or job interview.
What You'll Walk Away With
The return on your investment starts before graduation, with skills you're already using in your role, and holds its value as the technology evolves.
Graduates are equipped to:
- Lead AI initiatives and implementation in their organizations
- Evaluate and adopt emerging AI tools with confidence
- Translate AI capabilities into measurable business outcomes
- Advance into roles in strategy, operations, analytics leadership, and beyond
