AI Skills
for Workplace
CommunicationsCornell Certificate Program

In today’s fast-paced professional world, the ability to write clear, compelling messages can truly set you apart. In this course, you will discover how to leverage AI as your writing partner, enhancing both the speed and impact of your communications while maintaining your personal voice.

Guided by Professor Andrew Quagliata, you will explore strategies for crafting precise AI prompts, interpret AI-generated content, and refine your final message so it resonates with your audience. Through real-world exercises — focused on drafting persuasive emails — you’ll master time-saving techniques for producing polished, engaging documents that stand out in any setting.

By the end of the program, you’ll have gained the confidence and expertise to seamlessly integrate AI into your writing process, elevating the quality of every communication you send.

This course includes a year of free access to the AI Symposium! Symposium features various live, highly participatory virtual Zoom sessions with Cornell faculty and experts to explore today’s most pressing topics with your peers. Throughout the year, you may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending a Symposium is not required to successfully complete the certificate program.

Whether you're updating executives, pitching to clients, or training team members, strong presentation skills drive professional success. Now, as generative AI reshapes workplace practices, presenters face new opportunities and challenges. As a presenter, how can you leverage AI's capabilities thoughtfully while maintaining message quality and authentic delivery?

This course provides practical frameworks for using AI as a strategic planning partner in your presentation development. You will identify when and how to incorporate AI tools in your early planning to strengthen your purpose statements, analyze audience needs, and generate focused ideas. Through thoughtful prompting and iteration, you'll then structure your main points, plan effective visuals, and adapt content for different audiences. You'll also discover how to enhance your delivery through AI-assisted practice sessions, creating dynamic audience connections and laying groundwork for the steps following your presentation. From initial brainstorming to final rehearsal, this course will prepare you to maintain control of your message while benefiting from AI's analytical and creative capabilities.

Unlocking the potential of AI can revolutionize individual, managerial, and team productivity. In this course, you will discover how to harness the power of AI to significantly enhance performance, recognizing that while AI can dramatically boost productivity for some, it may hinder others if not used correctly. The key lies in discerning where and how to effectively employ AI.

You will build a mental model of AI by considering its three “personas” then applying several use cases associated with each persona to identify where you can use AI to increase the effectiveness of your work. You will also master the art of how to use AI: selecting the right tools for each scenario, crafting effective prompts, seamlessly integrating AI outputs into your workflows, and strategically deploying these tools within your organization. Finally, you will apply your skills to design an AI co-pilot for a critical job role that is currently a profitability bottleneck due to scaling, cost, or quality constraints. By the end of this course, you will be able to apply the necessary skills to harness the power of generative AI to become more effective in your work.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Generative AI: Capabilities and Compromises

It is critical for leaders to be able to harness the power of AI to transform their business. In this course, you will master the use of modern AI to enhance the profitability, productivity, quality, flexibility, and efficiency of your business operations. You will explore three key frameworks for how AI can transform business processes.

You will identify ways in which AI increases productivity by allowing for new information gathering, monitoring, and control; by creating new interfaces for seamless information sharing; and by enabling analytics on new information modalities. You will then identify opportunities for the automation of cognitive and physical tasks within your business processes — enabled by generative AI — to reduce associated cost and overcome scale, speed, and quality constraints, focusing on five key principles that separate successful automation efforts from ones that fail. Finally, you will explore how you can use AI to make your processes more flexible and modular, allowing them to adapt to evolving market conditions and support new business models. By the end of the course, you will take away specific opportunities for AI-driven business transformation at your organization and in your industry overall.

You are required to have completed the following courses or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Generative AI: Capabilities and Compromises
• Working With Generative AI to Become More Effective

Symposium sessions feature three days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today’s most pressing topics. The AI Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

Join us for the next Symposium, in which we’ll share experiences from across the industry, inspiring real-time conversations about best practices, innovation, and the future of AI. You will support your coursework by applying your knowledge and experiences to some of the most pressing topics and trends in the field. By participating in relevant and engaging discussions, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections with your fellow participants from across a variety of industries.

All sessions are held on Zoom.

Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.