Use cases and business case
Spot opportunities in the company, calculate benefits and costs robustly, and champion initiatives before executive management and the board.
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Executive Career Programs · Level 2
EMBA Executive TrainingAI Business Leadership
Lead AI projects, take responsibility for them and bring them into operation. In seven sprints and 70 lessons, on a realistic company case in the ATLASS Business Simulation Training, in front of executive management and the board.
Faculty made up of entrepreneurs
who walk these paths themselves every day.
- Format
- 21 course days in 7 sprintspart-time or Intensive
- Language
- German or Englishdepending on the cohort
- Location
- Launchspace Zürichplus self-study between sprints
- Qualification
- AI Business Expert (SAQ)together with the xMBA, the EMBA title
AI Business Leadership
Make your organization effective.
AI Business Leadership is Level 2 of GAT’s Executive Career Programs. As a team, you take an AI case in a simulated company from the first idea to live operation. In the ATLASS simulation, the company’s environment responds continuously to your decisions. Alongside this, you build your own AI agent.
Where AI Business Fluency makes you effective, AI Business Leadership makes your organization effective. This is about the questions decided at executive management level: Which use case is worth it, what does it cost, what legal and security aspects apply, and how do you bring the workforce along? You answer them not in a lecture hall, but by building, testing and defending. Every lesson ends with a result someone can use.
Hands-on, not lecture hall
Many programs explain how to lead AI projects. Here, you lead one: in a simulated company that feels like the real thing, with figures, data and employees that react to every decision you make. Processes and data come from the ATLASS Business Simulation Training. You prioritise use cases, work through the business case, clarify legal and security questions and win the workforce over to the change. These are exactly the decisions on every executive board’s table today. You cover the theory for the exam in compact self-study, so the course days belong entirely to working on the case.
Why sovereign AI
Sovereign AI opens up new opportunities, especially for Swiss companies: AI can be used even with confidential data when it runs on your own infrastructure. In the program, you build your own AI agent and learn to assess what is possible locally and what it costs. This lets you make well-founded decisions about the right path for your company.
What you’ll learn
Five competence areas.
The Executive Career Program covers the entire journey of an AI initiative, as a leader is accountable for it: from use case and business case, through legal and security, to rollout and operations.
Build and measure solutions
Clarify requirements, build prototypes and agents, measure quality and improve it in a targeted way.
Law, security and governance
Legal frameworks such as the EU AI Act and data protection, security of AI applications, risks and ground rules in the company.
Rollout, change and enablement
Plan the rollout, bring the workforce along, reassign roles, train employees, make decisions in critical situations.
Operations and sovereign AI
Run AI on your own infrastructure, weigh cloud, hybrid and local against each other, organize operations and monitoring.
Who it’s for
For senior professionals who implement and champion AI initiatives.
The Executive Career Program is aimed at senior professionals who don’t just accompany AI initiatives, but implement them, lead them and champion them before executive management or the board.
Project and program managers who take AI projects from proposal to operations.
Leaders and management who decide on AI investments, risks and rollout.
Functional leads from finance, HR, marketing, operations, legal and compliance who embed AI in their area.
Consultants and entrepreneurs who support companies in adopting AI.
Admission
The prerequisite is completion of the xMBA Executive Training: AI Business Fluency. Together, both levels lead to the EMBA title. Admission without the xMBA is only possible in justified individual cases; more on this in the FAQ.
What to bring
Your own powerful notebook with admin rights. You’ll receive the exact requirements when you register. No programming skills are needed.
As a team
You work in small teams with Fellows from different industries and functions. You take on changing roles, test each other’s results and challenge each other, just as in a real project.
Make your organization effective.
Program
Seven sprints, 70 lessons.
The Executive Career Program comprises seven sprints of three course days each, 21 course days and 70 lessons in total, complemented by self-study between the sprints. Content and structure are the same in the part-time format and the Intensive.
Part-timeOne sprint every two weeks, Thursday and Friday 13:30 to 19:30, Saturday 08:30 to 16:30, around 3 months.
IntensiveSprints from Monday to Wednesday, 09:00 to 17:00.
Hands-on: Input is hands-on and intensive. Most of the time goes into strategic work on the case: planning, analysing, discussing and deciding, always with AI at your side, and building where it makes sense. At the end you present your result and get feedback. Through the ATLASS simulation, new information and events keep coming into play, just as in a real company.
Part APlanning
Understand the company, find the use case
You get to know the simulated company in detail, find with your team the places where AI creates real value, and choose a lead case.
From use case to decision
The idea becomes an initiative: with clarified requirements, a robust business case and a look at legal and data protection. It ends with the first decision by the governing bodies.
Part BImplementation
Build and measure
Your team builds the solution, you build your own agent. Both are measured on realistic cases from the simulation and demonstrated.
Test, secure, approve
The solution is tested, attacked and secured, risks are managed, and the business case is updated with figures from the simulation. It ends with approval for implementation.
Part CRollout
Roll out and enable
You plan the rollout, bring the workforce along, reassign roles, train employees and make decisions in critical situations under time pressure.
Operate, scale, convince
You set up operations and monitoring and plan the next use cases. In the Final Pitch, you compete individually in the ATLASS Decision Arena: with your pitch and a critical incident. On top of that comes your personal 90-day plan for your own company.
CompletionExam
Exam sprint
Targeted preparation for the SAQ exam, the exam itself and the graduation with guests.
Sovereign AI in the lab
In sprints 1 to 6, you build your own AI agent step by step on your own infrastructure, compare it with your team’s cloud solution and finally make a well-founded operating decision.
Qualification
AI Business Expert (SAQ) and the EMBA title.
You complete the program with the personal certification AI Business Expert (SAQ). Together with the xMBA, the program leads to GAT’s EMBA title.
AI Business Expert (SAQ)
- Issued by
- SAQ, personal certification according to ISO/IEC 17024
- Requirement
- SAQ exam passed
- Validity
- 3 years, recertification possible
EMBA: AI Business Leadership
- Issued by
- Graduate School of Applied Technology & Management (GAT)
- Requirement
- successful completion of the xMBA plus successful completion of the AI Business Leadership program
- Validity
- unlimited; to stay up to date, we recommend the AI Loop subscription
Final exam in two parts
ATLASS Decision Arena
In your EMBA defence you compete individually: you defend your AI project, pitch and explain it, present with confidence, demonstrate leadership, stay calm under pressure and solve a critical incident in real time.
SAQ exam AI Business Expert
Multiple-choice exam in the last sprint, open book on your own notebook, according to SAQ regulations; pass mark 70 %. You prepare with self-study learning modules, the GAT exam trainer and a dedicated exam sprint.
You are admitted to the exam with at least 80 % attendance.
What comes next: No xMBA yet? The standard path leads through AI Business Fluency (Level 1). Both levels together lead to GAT’s EMBA title.
Go to AI Business FluencyFaculty
GAT’s Faculty.
Entrepreneurs who walk these paths themselves every day. The assignment of faculty members to AI Business Leadership will follow.
In the media and on stage
- Forbes Swiss
- NZZ
- SRF Tagesschau
- SRF 10vor10
- SRF
- Süddeutsche Zeitung Wirtschaftsgipfel
- Wired
- Deloitte Board Talk
- NZZ Swiss International Finance Forum
- McKinsey
- Swiss Re
- SAP Sapphire
- finews
- 20 Minuten
- Netzwoche
- Greater Zurich Area
- Swiss Fintech Fair
- Moneycab
- Fokus
- Inside IT
- brightonSEO
- WordCamp Europe
- LEADER Digital
- DigFin
- Finance Magnates
- The Legal 500
- Venturelab
- Swiss Cyber Storm
- SECO
Martin Meyer
Founder GAT, CEO ATLASS Technology AGMartin Meyer has been shaping the interface between finance and technology for more than two decades. As Global Head Innovation & Customer Experience in UBS Global Wealth Management, he led teams in Zurich, London and Singapore. Today he is CEO of ATLASS Technology AG, co-founder of the Innovationsverband Schweizer Arbeitsmarkt and head of the think tank Inside Future. He teaches at GAT and at other universities.
LinkedInChristina Kehl
Founder GAT, entrepreneur, board member and investorChristina Kehl is a lawyer, entrepreneur and board member. She founded Switzerland’s first fintech association and has been a member of the Federal Council’s Digital Transformation Advisory Board since 2017. Today she chairs the board of ATLASS Technology AG, leads the Innovationsverband Schweizer Arbeitsmarkt and is active as an investor. In 2026, Forbes Switzerland published a portrait of her. In the same year, she was named one of the “Top 100 Women in AI”.
LinkedInMore faculty members of the Graduate School of Applied Technology & Management
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In the media and on stage
New
AI Business Expert Directory
Professionals with the personal certification AI Business Expert (SAQ) are available to companies for AI projects, mandates and positions. Find the right person by name or topic.
Expert Directory
AI Business Expert Directory
Here you’ll find professionals with the AI Business Expert (SAQ) personal certification. They combine leadership experience with solid AI know-how and are available to companies for projects, mandates and positions. You can ask about their availability directly via LinkedIn.
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No entries found.
Facts, prices and dates
Introductory, alumni and partner price CHF 9'990.
Choose your cohort and request your place. Places per cohort are deliberately limited.
- Format
- Part-time: one sprint every two weeks, about 3 months
- Intensive: sprints from Monday to Wednesday
- Course times
- Part-time: Thursday and Friday 13:30 to 19:30, Saturday 08:30 to 16:30
- Intensive: Monday to Wednesday, 09:00 to 17:00
- Scope
- 21 course days in 7 sprints, 70 lessons
- Self-study alongside, between the sprints
- Language
- German or English, depending on the cohort
- Location
- Launchspace Zürich, Albulastrasse 55, 8048 Zürich
- Price
- CHF 9'990 Introductory, alumni and partner price
- incl. SAQ exam fee and GAT EMBA exam fee
- Included
- ATLASS simulation and Decision Arena
- Lab infrastructure and GAT exam trainer
- SAQ exam including exam fee
- GAT EMBA exam including exam fee
- Digital materials
- Not included
- Licences for AI tools, as they depend on personal preferences and existing subscriptions
- Getting there
- Train: 5 to 10 minutes on foot from Zürich Altstetten station, around 15 minutes from Zürich HB by S-Bahn
- Bus: line 31 to “Letzibach”
- Car: Parcandi parking on level -2, bookable via app
Introductory, alumni and partner price
CHF 9'990
Choose a cohort
Under Course schedule you can see all dates and times of each cohort, also as a PDF to download.
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As of 29.10.2026, subject to change. On site at Launchspace Zürich, Albulastrasse 55, 8048 Zurich; online sessions via Zoom. Please be on site 15 to 30 minutes before the course starts.
Optional
“AI Loop” subscription
So you stay on top of things after the programme: a curated Weekly Tech Update, full access to the AI Tool Navigator and four update workshops a year, two in the evening at Launchspace Zürich and two online. CHF 990 for alumni, CHF 1'900 for everyone else. Can be booked at any time via the GAT website as soon as it is available.
Join the waiting listFunding
Your education, your investment.
Developing at senior level also means taking responsibility for funding. The Executive Career Program AI Business Leadership and the EMBA are designed as an investment in your own career. That is why self-funding is at the centre: it lets you decide freely on timing, format and your next step.
Other routes are possible as a supplement, also in combination: your employer, fully or partly, as part of company training; in individual cases an RAV (regional employment centre) training grant via an individual course application (the decision lies with the RAV and is always individual); or an outplacement budget, for example as part of a separation or a social plan. We are happy to work out the right route with you, in the info session or in a personal conversation.
Tax deductionIn Switzerland, you can deduct self-funded costs for career-oriented further education from your taxable income. For direct federal tax, the maximum is CHF 13'000 per year and person (tax period 2025; the amount is adjusted periodically); the cantons have their own maximums. Costs covered by your employer or third parties are not deductible. The practice of your tax administration is decisive.
Grants and info sessionsAn overview of grants and funding programmes is available from the Innovationsverband Schweizer Arbeitsmarkt (ISA). In our info sessions we discuss funding in detail, and you can ask your individual questions.
Funding guideAll funding routes and notes for this programme in one place. Download funding guide
For HR and companies
Lead AI initiatives, stay in day-to-day business.
In the programme, your employees take an AI initiative through every phase your company will also face: choosing a use case, calculating the business case, checking legal and security aspects, implementing, training, operating. They defend the case before simulated boards and learn to judge when AI may run in the cloud and when on your own infrastructure.
Request corporate terms- Easy to plan part-time: one sprint every two weeks, Thursday and Friday 13:30 to 19:30, Saturday 08:30 to 16:30, about three months; for fast development, there is also the Intensive from Monday to Wednesday
- Examined credential: personal certification AI Business Expert (SAQ) according to ISO/IEC 17024, not just a certificate of attendance
- Hands-on instead of theory: your employees return with experience from a fully played-through initiative and a 90-day plan for your company
- Current obligations in view: regulation such as the EU AI Act, data protection, security and governance are part of the programme
- Terms: partner price for partner organisations and their members; corporate terms, closed cohorts and inclusion in outplacement offerings on request
- Bespoke programmes: for questions from your own company, we develop tailor-made programmes on request; in the open programme, all teams work on the school’s case
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between AI Business Fluency and AI Business Leadership?
AI Business Fluency (Level 1) makes you personally effective with AI, agile methods and a startup mindset. AI Business Leadership (Level 2) makes your organisation effective: you lead an AI initiative from idea to operation and defend it before executive management and the board.
How do I obtain the EMBA title?
The EMBA title requires successful completion of the xMBA Executive Training: AI Business Fluency plus successful completion of the AI Business Leadership programme. AI Business Leadership concludes with the Final Pitch in the ATLASS Decision Arena (pitch and critical incident) and the SAQ exam. The title is valid indefinitely; to stay up to date, we recommend the AI Loop subscription.
Can I take part without the xMBA?
The standard path leads through the xMBA. If you have already acquired proven and comprehensive AI Business Fluency, get in touch with us. Review and admission as an exception is only possible in justified individual cases, for example via a free AI Fluency Assessment in the ATLASS Decision Arena. Those who join this way receive the personal certification AI Business Expert (SAQ); the EMBA title requires the xMBA degree.
How does this AI leadership training differ from a CAS in Artificial Intelligence?
The difference lies in the way of working: instead of lectures, you take a realistic initiative through all phases as a team, before simulated boards and with your own AI agent. Every lesson ends with a built result.
Do I need programming skills?
No. Prototypes and agents are created with no-code tools, step by step, with the faculty members as coaches.
What is the ATLASS Business Simulation?
A business and board simulation by ATLASS Technology AG, Zurich. It models the environment of the company in the case and responds continuously to the teams’ decisions. Processes and data come from the ATLASS Business Simulation Training. More at atlass.ch.
Why do I build an agent on my own infrastructure?
Because sovereign AI opens up new possibilities for many companies, especially when confidential data is involved. You learn to assess what is possible locally and what it costs.
Who funds the programme?
Self-funding is at the centre. In addition, your employer can contribute, for example as part of in-company training. In individual cases, funding as an RAV (regional employment centre) training grant via an individual course application or via an outplacement budget is possible, also as part of a social plan; the decision always lies with the responsible body. You’ll find free tech and career events of the Innovationsverband in the ISA event calendar at luma.com/innovationsverband.
What happens if I miss a course day?
To be admitted to the SAQ exam, you need at least 80 % attendance. If a date clashes, get in touch early at team [at] swiss-gat.ch.
How long is the SAQ certificate valid?
Three years. After that, you can renew it through recertification; the SAQ fee for this is separate.
How do I register?
Choose your cohort above and request your place, or join the next info session first.
For HR and companies
Can we register employees as a company?
Yes. You can register individual employees for an open cohort or send several people together. For multiple registrations, closed cohorts and inclusion in your outplacement offering, company terms are available on request: team@swiss-gat.ch.
How much working time does the programme take?
21 course days in 7 sprints. In the part-time format there is one sprint every two weeks, Thursday and Friday 13:30 to 19:30 and Saturday 08:30 to 16:30, over about three months, plus accompanying self-study between the sprints. For faster progress there is also the intensive format from Monday to Wednesday.
What does the programme bring our company?
Your employees take an AI initiative through every phase you will face too: choosing a use case, calculating the business case, checking legal and security aspects, rolling out, training and operating. They come back with experience from a complete initiative, their own AI agent and a 90-day plan for your company.
Do our employees work with internal company data?
No. In the open programme, all teams work on the school’s case; processes and data come from the ATLASS Business Simulation Training. For questions from your own company, we develop tailored programmes on request.
What credential do our employees receive?
The personal certification AI Business Expert (SAQ) according to ISO/IEC 17024, an independently assessed credential rather than a certificate of attendance. Those who have also completed the xMBA receive GAT’s EMBA title.
Can the company cover the costs?
Yes, fully or partly, for example as part of company training. We are happy to discuss terms for companies and partner organisations: team@swiss-gat.ch.
Executive Career Programs
Ready to make AI effective in your organisation?
Come to the next info session, meet Faculty and Fellows, and find out how the Executive Career Program AI Business Leadership can take you and your company further.