Agentic AI Strategies and Applications

A smarter AI course for business leaders

The Agentic AI Strategies and Applications course is designed and delivered for business impact. The course equips business professionals with the practical skills to immediately improve their productivity using AI. The program focuses on autonomous AI agents: systems that can take goals, break them into steps, use tools, and execute with minimal human intervention. As individuals seek to have “AI that gets things done,” this course will help provide the hands-on ability to build and deploy agentic AI solutions that deliver real productivity gains. The course begins with essential foundations in modern AI and foundation models (e.g., large language models that power agentic workflows), presented in an accessible way for non-technical professionals. Participants learn to map workflows, select appropriate tooling, and translate messy problems into well-structured agentic capabilities. Participants will work through real-world business cases, simulations, and hands-on, low/no-code exercises to translate their ability to identify workflows, select appropriate tooling, build agentic capabilities, and evaluate the outputs based on KPIs and ROI.

Upcoming dates

Summer dates: June 16 to July 9
Fall dates: September 1 to 24
Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. (ET)
Delivery: Online, instructor-led, no asynchronous material.
Three hours per week (two 90-minute live sessions)
Price: $1,995

Kelley leads with agentic AI course

Sagar Samtani, associate professor and director of Kelley’s Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, highlights how Kelley’s faculty expertise enables students to cut through the hype of AI and identify its practical use.

Description of the video:

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Hi, everyone.

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Sagar Samtani here, faculty at
the Kelley School of Business

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and director of the Data Science
and Artificial Intelligence Lab.

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In this short video,
what I wanted to do

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is just give you a few key
reasons as to why you should

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invest in the Kelley
Executive Education Programs,

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especially related to artificial
intelligence-related education.

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So obviously, Kelley
has a great recognition,

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great brand recognition amongst
many different business schools

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and in the larger
landscape as well,

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as evidenced by top rankings.

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But I want to give you three
key reasons as to why you should

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look beyond just those rankings
when considering the Kelley

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School for executive education
around artificial intelligence.

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Number one, we have world
class faculty around AI

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that are not just
academic in nature.

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Certainly they publish
a lot of papers

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and they do
interesting research,

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but they've also gone
out into the field

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and been in leading AI roles at
top companies around the world.

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I, myself, had actually finished
up a one-year leave of absence

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from Indiana University, to
join Taiwan Semiconductor

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Manufacturing Company
as the director

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of artificial intelligence
out in Silicon Valley.

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And that gave me incredible
hands-on experience

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on how to drive and lead AI
teams through different types

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of technological change that I
really bring to the classroom.

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And there's other faculty with
similar types of experiences

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as well.

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Number two is that our faculty
are able to go ahead and really

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cut through the hype of
artificial intelligence.

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We often see fancy demos or cool
illustrations of what AI can

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and cannot do.

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But we really try to
cut through the hype

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and say, these are the types
of things that you can consider

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around artificial intelligence
in actual, functional use cases

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at organizations,
as evidenced by some

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of our practical working
experience as well.

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So this type of ability
to cut through the hype

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will also give us the capability
of being able to offer students

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the insights on what
actually works in practice

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and what does not work as well.

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A little bit of being able to
show behind the curtains of some

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of the great things
that work, some

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of the things that
actually don't work,

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that maybe hype in nature.

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And then number three,
one thing that's

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really unique
about what we offer

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is that we go beyond
just how can you

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use artificial intelligence in
different hands-on functional

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use cases, but also consider
the practicality of them,

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things like
deployment strategies.

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But more importantly,
we're also looking

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at things around
the cybersecurity

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or the responsible use
of these AI technologies

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when they're in firms.

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We hear about many different
types of attacks and breaches

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against traditional
IT infrastructure.

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AI is one of the next
waves of infrastructure

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that has the potential
to be exploited.

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And one of the
key things that we

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look at as a faculty is how do
we go ahead and train students

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in the ability to be able to
recognize some of those security

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issues and also be able to
proactively mitigate them

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as well?

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And when you consider
the importance

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that AI has in many systems that
are consequential in nature,

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this forward-looking approach
really sets Kelley faculty apart

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when delivering executive
education programs.

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So again, three key things
to keep in mind when

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you are considering
Kelley Executive

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Education when looking at
artificial intelligence.

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Number one, world class faculty
with practical and academic

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experience.

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Number two, being able
to cut through the hype

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and look at functional
use cases and value of AI.

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And number three, considering
the practicality of AI,

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as well as the
deployment and security

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issues that are often
associated with them.

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Thank you.

Interested in bringing this program to your company or organization? Email kelleypd@iu.edu to discuss our custom program options.

Agentic AI for business leaders of tomorrow

What separates Kelley from other agentic AI programs is our world-renowned faculty, who tie academic research with real-world application. Our curriculum is designed by experts shaping the frontier of autonomous systems. You will learn from Sagar Samtani, a global authority in enterprise AI strategy, and Jingjing Zhang, the architect of the #1-ranked Kelley Direct Online MBA course on agentic AI. Topics you can master include:

Foundations: Move beyond chatbots to understand foundation models and the agentic mindset.
Design and deployment: Build agents from prompt to full autonomy with hands-on labs.
Orchestration: Connect multiple AI steps into end-to-end, multi-agent workflows.
Governance and ROI: Define success metrics, security protocols, and ethical guardrails.

Want to learn more?

Fill out the form below to request more information.

Who should enroll?

This agentic AI certificate experience at Kelley requires no programming or technical background. It is designed for professionals seeking to leverage autonomous agents for improved productivity, including:

Business leaders and managers seeking to deploy AI across functional areas.
Nontechnical professionals who want to build and use AI agents without a programming background.
Consultants and senior leaders looking to add agentic AI capabilities to their strategic toolkit.
Kelley alumni and career-advancers exploring an MBA with an artificial intelligence focus.

Showcase your new skills

In addition to earning a certificate of completion from the Kelley School of Business, you will earn a digital badge that will showcase your skills on platforms like LinkedIn. These credentials signal to your network that you possess the concrete, in-demand skills needed to lead in the next wave of intelligent autonomous systems.

Course details

All program sessions are live, giving you a distinct advantage in the fast-moving AI industry. While we provide recordings for unavoidable conflicts, attending live sessions allows you to engage with the most current developments in real-time, so you can keep pace with rapid industry shifts.

To ensure you stay on track, we’ve included quick knowledge checks after each module. These aren’t meant to be hurdles; you’ll have multiple attempts for each one, and we’ll only keep your highest score to ensure you feel confident in your progress.

During week one of the program, students will understand AI as a reasoning partner and how to apply AI in business application environments.

Topics:

Background and history/evolution of AI
Nontechnical introduction to LLMs and foundation models
Chatbot vs. agent: what makes an agent different
Identifying use cases in organizations and scoping/specifying business problems

During week two, students will learn to build and work with autonomous AI agents.

Topics:

Building autonomous agents: from prompt to full autonomy
Hands-on practice with agent platforms: delegating tasks, providing context, and evaluating agent output
Agent reliability, guardrails, and knowing when to trust (or override) agent decisions

During week three, students will discover how to work with single agents and multi-agent orchestration.

Topics:

How agents use tools and produce reliable output
Reasoning and planning
Connecting multiple AI steps into end-to-end workflows
Memory management and human in the loop

During week four, students will gain skills in accountability, risk management, and organizational readiness.

Topics:

Agentic AI deployment and monitoring
Evaluation and governance
Security and privacy

Learning objectives

Participants will learn how to:

Understand what agentic AI is and why it matters for corporate productivity: Understand how autonomous AI agents differ from chatbots, RPA, and traditional automation, and know when to use each.
Identify where agentic AI can create real business value: Recognize high impact productivity use cases across functions and industries.
Translate workflows into agentic AI opportunities: Break down real business workflows into well-defined, buildable agentic AI use cases.
Design and govern agentic AI workflows responsibly: Define appropriate levels of autonomy, human oversight, and accountability.
Evaluate agentic AI solutions and platform options: Assess solution approaches at a business level without needing technical expertise.
Define success metrics and business impact: Define KPIs, measure business impact, and calculate ROI for agentic AI initiatives.

Access a customizable supervisor request letter to support your case for attending a Kelley professional development course.

Meet your instructors

Sagar Samtani

Sagar Samtani is a leading expert in applied artificial intelligence and cybersecurity with deep experience in advising and enabling Fortune 100 organizations. Most recently, he served as director of the AI for Business Intelligence Research (AI4BIR) Center at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), where he helped guide the company’s enterprise AI strategy and led initiatives connecting AI innovation to large‑scale business intelligence, cybersecurity, and operational workflows. His work at TSMC positioned him at the forefront of applying advanced AI systems in one of the world’s most complex and strategically important technology environments.

Samtani is an associate professor and Arthur M. Weimer Fellow at the Kelley School of Business, where he also serves as the founding executive director of the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (DSAIL). In this role, he partners closely with industry leaders to design AI solutions that address real-world challenges in cybersecurity, risk management, digital operations, and business intelligence.

A recognized thought leader, Samtani has delivered invited talks at major industry conferences such as RSA Cybersecurity, BlackHat, DEF CON, JPMorganChase AI summits, and IT Nation, and he serves on the CompTIA ISAO Executive Advisory Council. He regularly consults with executives in technology, finance, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure on emerging AI risks and opportunities.

His research portfolio includes more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and over $9M in funded projects, including multiple grants from the National Science Foundation. He is a past NSF CAREER Award winner and was inducted into the NSF/CISA CyberCorps Hall of Fame for his contributions to the cybersecurity community.

Samtani’s work has been featured in over 100 media outlets including Associated Press, Forbes, Science Magazine, and Fox Business. He has received numerous teaching and scholarly awards, including the Poets&Quants Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professors, Indiana University’s Trustees’ Teaching Award, and the AIS Early Career Award.

Across all of his roles, Samtani brings a rare combination of deep technical expertise, enterprise-level AI leadership experience, and a practical, executive-friendly approach to AI strategy, making him a powerful guide for organizations navigating the next wave of intelligent and autonomous systems.

Jingjing Zhang

Jingjing Zhang is the Judith Norman Davis and Kim G. Davis Professor of Business Analytics and associate chairperson of the Department of Operations and Decision Technologies at the Kelley School of Business. She brings deep expertise at the intersection of artificial intelligence, business analytics, and human behavior, with research that examines how intelligent systems influence decisions, performance, and trust in real-world settings. Her areas of focus include AI in business, human–AI interaction, algorithm bias, AI reliance, and algorithm performance and stability; topics that are central to deploying agentic AI responsibly and effectively in organizations.

Zhang’s work is widely published in leading research outlets and is recognized for advancing understanding of how algorithmic systems perform over time and how people respond to and rely on them. She also contributes to the field through significant editorial and leadership roles, including serving as senior editor for Information Systems Research and as department editor for Decision Sciences (AI in Operations, Information Systems, and Supply Chains). Her professional recognition includes the AIS Mid-Career Award (2025) and Indiana University’s Trustees’ Teaching Award (May 2024), reflecting both scholarly impact and excellence in the learning experience she creates for participants.

In the Kelley agentic AI course, Zhang will equip professionals and teams to build autonomous AI solutions that streamline operations and drive real productivity gains. Her work is grounded in a clear understanding of how these systems behave, where they create value, and what it takes to evaluate and govern them over time. This approach is especially relevant for professionals who need to move beyond understanding AI concepts to building and deploying agentic systems in their organizations.

Ready to lead in the age of agentic AI?

Take the next step in your leadership journey.

Enroll now

Questions?

Please reach out to us at kelleypd@iu.edu to learn more about the Agentic AI Strategies and Applications course and other world-class programs offered by Kelley School of Business Executive Education Programs.

A smarter AI course for business leaders

Upcoming dates

Kelley leads with agentic AI course

Agentic AI for business leaders of tomorrow

Want to learn more?

Who should enroll?

Showcase your new skills

Course details

Module 1, Foundations: AI, business contexts, and the agentic mindset

Module 2, Autonomous agents: Design, deployment, and hands-on practice

Module 3, Building agentic systems: Tools, planning, RAG, memory, and orchestration

Module 4, Enterprise reality: Evaluation, deployment, security, governance, and economics

Learning objectives

Meet your instructors

Sagar Samtani

Bio

Jingjing Zhang

Bio

Ready to lead in the age of agentic AI?

Questions?

Social media