Corporate leaders turn to new doctorate to strategise AI adoption

PolyU DBAI equips leaders for AI Hong KongEducation Corporate leaders turn to new doctorate to strategise AI adoption PolyU Business School’s DBAI programme aims to equip senior leaders with the skills to build AI-native companies, as the city intensify efforts to become a regional tech hub Paid Post: PolyU Business School 4-MIN READ4-MIN Listen Advertising partner Published: 12:00am, [The content of this article has been produced .] For modern-day businesses, effective AI adoption is increasingly seen as make or break if they are to stay competitive. Executives do see this potential but frequently reduce it to little more than a tool for drafting reports or creating slides.  And this digital divide is what the Doctor of Business Artificial Intelligence (DBAI) at PolyU Business School of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University sets out to address.  The Doctor of Business Artificial Intelligence at PolyU Business School of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University combines taught modules, residential workshops and an applied thesis. The programme is designed for senior professionals seeking to advance from using AI tools to building AI-native business strategies. As Hong Kong’s first professional doctorate at the meeting point of AI, business intelligence and generative AI, the course consists of taught modules, residential workshops and a major applied thesis.   The goal is to give senior professionals the insight required to weave the technology into strategy, operations and organisational culture from the outset.  “The real gap is AI strategic leadership. Many companies today have AI pilots, but not AI transformation. They have tools, but the way these tools is deployed is not strategic. They have technical teams, but not always board-level AI judgement,” said Prof Michael Xu, who directs the programme, of the major shortfall the DBAI seeks to tackle.  John Li (left), a cybersecurity executive and DBAI student, and Prof Michael Xu (right), programme director and chairman of the Hong Kong AI Foundation. The substantial thesis component, Prof Xu noted, forces senior executives to move beyond slogans.   “They must define a real business problem… test assumptions and evaluate measurable outcomes.”   One student has developed virtual avatars for teaching and customer service, while others in cybersecurity use AI to run red-team and blue-team simulations that uncover system vulnerabilities.   Li described such work as useful. He has seen how AI can model both attacks and defences, enabling companies to test their setups far more quickly. At the same time, he warned against over-reliance on the technology. “You cannot just fire people and rely only on AI,” he cautioned. “Human judgment remains indispensable.”  Prof Xu took a comparable view on jobs.