UC Berkeley Haas taps deep faculty expertise and locations at the epicenter of the AI revolution, introducing new AI certificates to help MBA students prepare for deep global changes to rebuild their careers and redefine leadership.
AI in the Graduate School of Business Certificate spans four key pillars: technology, management, strategy, and impact. Whether leading a team, starting a new company or helping to transform the industry, it exposes students to the challenge of using AI to build their own capabilities.
“AI is changing not only how we lead, but the very nature of the people and the company we lead,” said Erika Walker, Senior Associate Dean of Haas's Leader. “We gather expertise across Haas and Berkeley to train first-generation 'AI-Native' business leaders. ”
UC Berkeley plays a fundamental role in the development of machine learning and computational intelligence, with the Bay Area of the AI Revolution being zero on the ground. Bay Area startups Openai and Perplexity AI have co-founders/founders of Berkeley. The region is also home to the human giants Google, Meta and Apple (co-founded by Steve Wozniak, EECS 76), as well as Chipmakers Nvidia and AMD. Berkeley has created database company Databricks and many other AI-focused startups.
UC Berkeley's top-ranked programs in data analytics, computer science, artificial intelligence programs, and business are at the forefront of AI talent development, which is driving the boom. Berkeley ranks number one in the number of undergraduate graduates who have started venture companies for the third year in a row.
“Berkeley is a global leader in AI and we want to enable students to leverage their expertise as AI revolutionizes the way businesses run,” says Haas Dean Jenny Chatman. “From finance and accounting to marketing and operation, impactful leaders need to understand how to manage a human team that will strategically, creatively, and make good judgments to maximize impact.”
“Berkeley is a global leader in AI and we want to enable students to leverage that expertise as AI revolutionizes the way businesses run.”
– Dean Jenny Chatman
AI Course Anchor Certificate Business
A total of 25 faculty members from all six HAAS academic groups will lead courses in the AI certificate program, teaching students how to separate commercial possibilities from hype and draw ethics lines. The Anchor Course, AI Business, will be launched in Spring 2026, taught by a team of faculty members with expertise in economics, finance, operation and management.
To earn a certificate, students will need to complete a six additional unit selected from AI course business and 30 available courses ranging from data mining and data analysis to entrepreneurship, healthcare, new product development and the use of AI in climate research. Courses are also provided that address the risks of security, privacy and ethics.
“This program is not about chasing hype, it's about learning to apply AI thoughtfully, strategically and responsibly,” said Steve Nunes of EWMBA 27. In the workplace, Nunes says that they need to lead conversations with both technical experts and executives, and the certificate provides a framework to improve that skill set.
“This program is not about chasing hype. It's about learning to apply AI thoughtfully, strategically and responsibly.”
—Steve Nunes, ewmba 27
“My goal is to further strengthen the point between what AI can technically do and how businesses use it responsibly to drive real results,” says Nunes, who is also vice president of marketing and communications at HAAS AI club.
Teacher AI expertise runs deep
Many of the teachers at HAAS schools were early adopters of machine learning, natural language processing, and large-scale language models for research. Schools integrate AI tools into instruction to enable students and instructors to create apps, evaluate product ideas, speed up repetition and enhance learning. The tool co-launched by Ghazaleh Sadooghi, Ewmba 25 (Rumi docs) is widely used to enable faculty to customize AI policies and distinguish between authentic student works and AI creative content.
Areas of teacher expertise include:
- marketing: Professor Zsolt Katona, a digital marketing expert with a background in computer science, is studying the use of AI in market research. Katona, who chaired the school's recent AI tasks, has created an MBA and executive education course on AI fundamentals. He will co-teach the AI Foundation course business.
- Finance and Economics: Professor Adair Morse is considering using fair AI in the credit market, while Assistant Professor Anastassia Fedyk researches and educates the corporate-level impact on employment and innovation, as well as the impact that AI has on corporate systemic risks.
- Entrepreneurial spirit: Professor Toby Stuart, Head of the HAAS Entrepreneurship & Innovation Group, is the faculty director of the Entrepreneurship Program at Berkeley Haas, focusing on the impact of AI on corporate organizations and strategies, and how AI is changing the labor market and professional, scientific, white collar work. Stuart painted Deep Silicon Valley and created the school's popular immersive program. AI is also the heart of the Lean LaunchPad course.
- management: A study by Associate Professor Abhishek Nagaraj examines the power and limitations of big data and AI tools on the formation of corporate performance and social outcomes. Computing intelligence has become essential for management research, including using natural language processing to perform linguistic analysis of digital trace data such as email, such as organizational cultural work by Sameer Srivastava and Jenny Chatman.
Full-time, evening and weekend Berkeley Haas students and executive MBA programs are eligible to earn certificates. This is the latest product in the certificate program, including Michaels Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business, Certificate in Business Analysis, and Certificate in Real Estate Academic Graduation.
Andrei Bratescu, FTMBA 26, interned this summer at Amazon's Zoox, a self-driving vehicle developer.
“For me, it's important to signal employers that I'm an MBA who doesn't do just cash flow modeling, leadership and accounting courses and that my two years have also been spent studying and applying AI.”
Award-winning AI Startup
Across Haas, an increasing number of students and alumni are applying AI to entrepreneurship. Among them is Lifan Wang, MBA 22, who received $10 million in funding last year for the open source AI platform FlowGPT. AI also won center stage at UC Launch Demo Day, with the Haas team appearing in the top three last April. Co-founded by Tom Lee of BS 11 (EECS), EWMBA 26 and MBA 14 (top, right, center), No. 1 Visto (formerly Loveit.ai) is an AI platform that helps you track and optimize your brand across AI search engines.
Other finalist teams included Bharath Kurapati, Technology for AI-driven inventory forecasting for small businesses, such as Shopify, founded by EWMBA 26, and FeationBox AI. Founded by Nathan HSU, BS/BA 24 (Robinson LSBE), and Joel AN, BS 25 (Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering), Anchor Logic is working on Piezo, an AI-powerful wearable smart vest for patients with balanced disorders.
“We are in a very early stage of the AI revolution, but our goal is to put Haas at the forefront of training for ethical and visionary leaders and connect it with an unparalleled campus and Bay Area ecosystem just outside the door,” Chatman said.
