On Campus Open Programme

AI-First Strategy

Escape the AI Death Trap. AI has moved value creation to the moment of use. Strategy must move with it.

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Key details

  • Programme type
    On Campus Open Programme
  • Location
    On campus
  • Start date
    12 Apr 2027  -  Applications opening soon
  • Duration
    5 days
  • Department
    Department of Management

Overview

Build AI that creates new demand and becomes more valuable with every use.

Most organisations are using AI to make existing work faster and cheaper. Those gains matter, but they do not necessarily create new demand. As investment rises, the gap between what firms spend on AI and the value they capture can widen. We call this the AI Death Trap.

AI changes this because what a system can do is no longer fixed when it is built. Models, data and context can be combined at runtime, at the moment of use, creating new outputs and new possibilities for value. Organisations that simply attach AI to existing processes may gain efficiency, but miss this more fundamental shift.

AI-First Strategy equips senior leaders to respond to this runtime revolution. Led by Professor Youngjin Yoo, with MJ Jabbour, Chief AI Officer at Microsoft, and Mickey McManus, Senior Advisor at BCG and former CEO of Maya Design, the programme combines original LSE research with frontier AI leadership and world-class design practice.

Over five intensive days, participants diagnose where their organisation is trapped, design AI-enabled value loops that learn from use, networks and context, and reshape their organisation to create and capture value at runtime, not only at design time. They leave with a strategic diagnosis, a generative value-loop design, and a sequenced 90-day, one-year and three-year roadmap.

Impact

A transformational learning experience for you. Immediate, actionable insights for your organisation.

Programme content

AI-First Strategy leverages LSE research and world-class industry expertise to question and explore concepts in action, while challenging participants to apply learning to their own organisation through hands-on diagnostic exercises. The through-line across the five topics is the runtime revolution: in the AI economy value is constituted at the moment of use, and each topic moves from diagnosing that shift to designing for it.

Key topics

How you learn

AI-First Strategy integrates new approaches to AI-driven value creation and brings them to life through case discussions, organisational diagnostics and workshop sprints. Participants apply the learning to their own organisational context, with ideas tested and refined through peer and faculty feedback. The programme integrates original LSE research with frontier AI leadership and world-class design practice. Teaching is led by distinguished LSE faculty and leaders from Microsoft and BCG. Across the week the runtime revolution is the organising idea: participants learn to locate where their own value is now made, and to design for it.

Who attends?

AI-First Strategy is designed for senior leaders and executives responsible for AI investment decisions and their outcomes. The frameworks shared in the programme are industry-agnostic and address the fundamental economics of AI-driven value creation across sectors, from finance and consulting to technology, manufacturing, healthcare, energy and creative industries.

Participants include:

  • C-suite leaders: CEO, CFO, CSO, CIO, CTO, CAIO.
  • VPs and Directors responsible for firm-wide strategy, digital transformation, innovation or technology.
  • Business unit leaders who must demonstrate returns on AI investments.

Why LSE?

AI technologies are reshaping the economic, social and geopolitical systems within which businesses operate today. As the world's leading social science university, LSE brings a unique multidisciplinary perspective on these broader forces and their strategic implications for leaders.

At LSE, we don't treat technology as a fixed reality to be adopted, nor do we focus solely on technical capabilities, functional applications or implementation tactics. Instead, we challenge participants to see the bigger picture. AI is not a fixed capability you install. It composes what it does at the moment of use, and that is where strategy now has to operate.

AI-First Strategy draws on LSE's long-standing leadership in information systems, more than 20 years of pioneering research in digital innovation by its lead faculty, and the expertise of leading industry practitioners. Together, we offer a unique combination of business, technology and academic rigour.

The programme challenges you to question the assumptions that underpin AI, look beyond legacy industry models, and design strategies that create new sources of value. Rather than simply responding to technological change, you will learn to shape it and become an active architect of your organisation's AI future.

Faculty

Youngjin Yoo

Professor Youngjin Yoo

Professor of Information Systems and Innovation, Academic Director of LSE Lifelong Learning Digital & Innovation

MJ Jabbour

Dr. MJ Jabbour

Microsoft's AI Innovation Officer in the Office of the CTO

Mickey McManus

Mickey McManus

Senior Advisor at BCG and former CEO of Maya Design

Department overview

The Department of Management at LSE is a world-class centre for research and education in business and management, that draws fully on the LSE tradition of inter-disciplinary academic excellence. Ranked #5 worldwide for social sciences and management by the QS World University Rankings (2023) and #2 in the UK by percentage of overall four and three star in the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), the department informs and inspires the very best in management in practice by challenging and enhancing understanding of people, teams, organisations and markets, as well as the economic, psychological, social, political and technological contexts in which they operate worldwide. 

Fees and entry requirements

Tuition fee: £8,850

This covers all tuition, course materials, daily lunches and networking events. You will receive an LSE certificate of completion at the end of the course.

Entry requirements

All LSE executive education participants are required to have:

  • Fluency in English.
  • A good undergraduate degree or significant work experience in a relevant role(s).
  • Minimum five years’ professional experience. Typically our participants have more than ten years’ work experience, but we will consider those with less experience who have enjoyed an accelerated career path to a senior level.

Check out our FAQs for more information

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