AAILA Founding Class 2026 /// Applied AI Leadership Program

The Applied AI Leadership Academy (AAILA) is a six-week executive programme for leaders responsible for making AI work across strategy, operations, technology, finance, risk and HR. This is not an AI fundamentals course or a technical bootcamp. Participants work on their own organisation's challenges, moving from opportunity to implementation across four live sessions: • Understand where AI matters. Separate opportunity from hype, and identify the realistic AI opportunities in your own industry and value chain. • Work with AI, not just with tools. Understand how professional AI agents are built, where they fail, and build one for a process you own. • Build something real — and know what it takes to scale. Turn one opportunity into a working prototype, then assess it against the three conditions that decide whether it ever reaches production. • Make it stick. Connect strategy, people, execution and governance into a 90-day roadmap you own, not your vendor. Participants build a prioritised AI opportunity portfolio, a working agent, a prototype with a workflow blueprint, and a 90-day AI leadership roadmap — each applied directly to their own organisation. The programme connects leaders from Europe, the GCC and beyond, with a cross-market perspective, peer exchange, office hours with both founders, and an invitation to the AAILA Executive Dinner in Dubai in December. No coding or technical background required. Built for leaders facing real decisions on AI investment, ownership and change.