CAIS: Certified AI Strategist
Australia's professional designation for senior leaders and advisers who set AI strategy at board and executive level.
Overview
CAIS is Australia's professional designation for senior practitioners who need the strategic authority and credential to lead AI at board and executive level. It is not another capability program. The CAIS program develops the structured capability to assess organisational readiness, identify and prioritise AI opportunities, navigate the Australian governance and regulatory landscape, and produce a working strategy ready to defend in a leadership conversation. Delivered as a live virtual cohort over approximately two weeks, every session is built around a practical framework tool participants apply directly to their own organisation. Every participant leaves with a structured AI Strategy Brief and a toolkit of eleven reusable frameworks they carry into their practice.
Who it's for
Built for professionals already leading AI decisions
- Consultants and advisory professionals advising organisations on AI adoption and strategy
- Transformation leaders and enterprise architects leading AI-enabled change
- Heads of function who need to drive AI decisions across their team or organisation
- Senior project and programme managers moving into AI strategy and governance roles
- Professionals who have completed AI Professional Foundations and are progressing to advanced strategic capability
This is the right course for you if
Earlier in your AI capability journey? Build from AI Professional Foundations. Ready to move into AI consulting practice after CAIS? Explore the AI Consultant Certification.
Outcomes
What you'll be able to do
Assess your organisation's AI readiness across people, process, data, technology, and culture, and identify where the friction will be.
Identify genuine AI opportunities from your organisation's context, prioritise them against impact and feasibility, and build a defensible business case.
Evaluate technology approaches and lead technology decisions at a strategic level, without needing to be a technologist.
Design a governance and risk framework appropriate to your organisation's size, industry, and regulatory obligations.
Build and present a structured AI Strategy Brief to executive and board audiences, and handle the objections you will face.
Carry the CAIS designation as evidence of advanced strategic AI capability, recognised across the AAAI pathway.
What's covered
Course content
Six live virtual sessions building from strategic context to a structured AI Strategy Brief. The primary value in those two weeks is the knowledge you gain and the strategy brief you build. You are learning how to think about AI evaluation, governance, and risk assessment in a way that translates directly to your organisation. The cohort is deliberately small, which makes this an environment for collaboration and peer discussion rather than passive instruction. Each session includes a dedicated framework tool, built into the program workbook, that participants apply directly to their own organisation and keep for use beyond the program.
The AI Strategy Landscape and Strategic Context
Where AI actually is in enterprise, why most initiatives fail to scale, what an AI strategist does, and an introduction to the AI Strategy Brief.
Organisational Readiness and Stakeholder Mapping
Assessing readiness across people, process, data, technology, and culture. Mapping the stakeholders needed to take an AI strategy from approval to adoption.
Use Case Identification and Prioritisation
Identifying genuine AI opportunities from business problems, not technology capabilities. Prioritisation frameworks, portfolio thinking, and business case construction.
The Technology Landscape and Technology Decisions
A structured overview of current and emerging AI capabilities. Build versus buy versus partner decisions. Evaluating vendors and platforms as a non-technologist.
AI Governance, Risk, and the Australian Regulatory Landscape
Governance frameworks that enable rather than block. The Australian regulatory context: Privacy Act reforms, Australia's AI Ethics Principles, APRA and ASIC guidance. Risk assessment in practice.
Building, Presenting, and Defending Your AI Strategy Brief
Completing and integrating the brief. Presenting to leadership. Peer review and challenge. Panel discussion and program close.
Grounded in the frameworks that govern AI in Australia. Why Australian matters →
How it works
Assessment and credential
Built progressively across all six sessions using your own organisation as context, the AI Strategy Brief covers strategic framing, organisational readiness, use case prioritisation, technology considerations, governance and regulatory alignment, and an implementation roadmap. Participants work through embedded framework tools in the program workbook at each session, building each section of the brief as they go. The completed brief is evaluated by the program facilitator before the CAIS designation is awarded. The program concludes with a panel discussion in which participants present their briefs.
The CAIS digital badge is available on LinkedIn and professional profiles. The CAIS designation confirms structured, assessed AI strategy capability at advanced level, grounded in the Australian governance and regulatory context.
Enrolment
Investment
Founding member rate. Standard price AU$2,000 to $2,500.
The founding cohort rate is available for the inaugural CAIS cohort of eight to ten participants. It recognises the role founding members play in establishing the CAIS designation. In exchange, participants provide candid feedback and are invited to act as early advocates. This is not a discount. It is a founding member rate for professionals who are part of building something from the ground up.
Community
The CAIS community
One year of access, included with your designation
Every CAIS designee receives twelve months of access to the CAIS community. It is where members stay connected, share what they are working through, and support each other as they implement their strategies inside their respective organisations.
This is not a passive resource. The peer network works because the people in it are navigating the same terrain: senior professionals taking AI strategy from a brief into a boardroom, then into execution. When you hit a real challenge, whether it is a governance question, a stakeholder who will not move, or a use case that is not delivering, this is where you bring it. The value is in the room, not the platform.
Access begins on completion of the program and runs for twelve months.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What is CAIS?
CAIS (Certified AI Strategist) is Australia's professional designation for senior practitioners who advise and lead AI adoption inside organisations. Built by the Australian Academy of Artificial Intelligence, it develops the strategic capability to assess organisational readiness, identify and prioritise AI opportunities, navigate Australian governance and regulatory requirements, and lead AI strategy at board and executive level. The program is delivered as a live virtual cohort and culminates in a structured AI Strategy Brief drawn from the participant's own organisation.
Who is CAIS for?
CAIS is designed for senior professionals already working with AI who need the structured capability and credential to lead it at executive and board level. This includes consultants and advisory professionals who advise organisations on AI adoption, transformation leaders and enterprise architects leading AI-enabled change, and heads of function who need to drive AI decisions across their organisation. It is not an introductory program. Professionals earlier in their AI capability journey should begin with AI Core or AI Professional Foundations.
What is the AI Strategy Brief?
The AI Strategy Brief is the capstone deliverable of CAIS. Participants build it across all six sessions using their own organisation as context, working through embedded framework tools in the program workbook at each session. By the end of the program, it covers strategic framing, organisational readiness, use case identification and prioritisation, technology considerations, governance and regulatory alignment, and an implementation roadmap. It is a structured working document, ready to take into a leadership conversation and develop further with the participant's team. It is evaluated by the program facilitator before the CAIS designation is awarded.
What does founding cohort mean?
The founding cohort is the first run of CAIS. It is not a pilot or a trial. It is the real program at a founding member rate of AU$1,000, in recognition of the role the first eight to ten CAIS designees play in establishing the credential. Founding cohort members are AAAI's first CAIS graduates, first alumni advocates, and the professionals whose AI Strategy Briefs and outcomes will shape how the program develops. In exchange for the founding member rate, participants provide candid feedback and are invited to act as early advocates for the CAIS designation.
What are the entry requirements?
There are no formal academic prerequisites, but CAIS is designed for senior professionals already working with AI in a strategic or advisory capacity. Participants should have existing familiarity with AI in an organisational context. Professionals earlier in their AI capability journey should consider AI Professional Foundations before progressing to CAIS.
How is CAIS assessed?
CAIS is assessed through the AI Strategy Brief capstone. The brief is built progressively across all six sessions using the participant's own organisation as context. The completed brief is evaluated by the program facilitator against a structured assessment framework. There is no written exam. The program concludes with a panel discussion in which participants present and defend their briefs. The CAIS designation is awarded on successful completion of the brief and the panel discussion.
How is CAIS different from AI Professional Foundations?
AI Professional Foundations builds applied AI capability for professionals who need to use AI responsibly and effectively within their role, team, or function. CAIS builds strategic authority for senior professionals who need to lead AI decisions at an organisational level, advise executives and boards, and produce a credible AI strategy. CAIS is designed for professionals who are past the capability-building stage and need the framework, the credential, and the deliverable to lead with authority.
How does CAIS compare to executive AI programs from overseas institutions?
Executive AI programs from institutions such as MIT and Harvard are typically 6 to 9 months in duration, priced in US dollars, and built on academic frameworks with case study-based learning. They produce knowledge, not deliverables. CAIS is a focused 12-hour program that produces a working document: a structured AI Strategy Brief built from your own organisation, ready to take into a leadership conversation. It is also the only program in the market grounded in Australian governance and regulatory context, covering the Privacy Act amendments, Australia's AI Ethics Principles, and sector-specific guidance from APRA and ASIC. The question is not which program covers more ground. It is which program gives a senior Australian professional what they need to lead AI strategy in an Australian organisation.
The pathway
Where this sits
AI Professional Foundations
Intermediate, applied AI capability with Australian governance grounding. The recommended step before CAIS for professionals building toward strategic-level practice.
View AI Professional Foundations →CAIS: Certified AI Strategist
Advanced strategic AI capability and the professional designation for leaders and advisers who set AI strategy at board and executive level.
AI Consultant Certification
Specialist advisory practice for professionals who design and scope AI solutions for clients and organisations.
View AI Consultant →Lead AI strategy with the credential to prove it.
CAIS gives Australian senior professionals the applied strategic capability to advise and lead AI decisions at board and executive level, and the designation that confirms it.