“Even the most non-technical person can ride the river-all they need is the right boat”
AI is everywhere these days, and its promise to transform every aspect of business comes packaged with a sense of inevitability. The message is clear: Learn AI now or get left behind. For working professionals still trying to figure out where to start, that pressure can feel less like motivation and more like standing at the edge of a river wondering how fast it’s flowing.
Here’s what Associate Professor Alex Gabbi, who teaches AI courses through The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Professional Education (CPE), wants you to know: Even the most non-technical person can ride the river—all they need is the right boat.
Gabbi has spent nearly two decades teaching global entrepreneurship, international business operations and marketing at UT Austin, and his newest courses are built around the idea that AI literacy is a moving target. The technology moves just that fast. What is more important is to build the mindset, find the right on-ramp for your field and develop enough confidence to keep moving when the current shifts. That’s what practical AI literacy actually looks like, and it’s what each of these courses is designed to deliver.
Two of the courses below are led by Gabbi: AI for Project Management and AI for Nonprofits. The third, AI Skills for Modern Professionals, is a CPE offering designed for professionals who are looking for a broader entry point, a beginner-friendly introduction before committing to something more specific.
AI for Project Management: A New Edge for Every Phase
Scope creep, resource conflicts and schedules that slip the moment they’re published. These are the pressure points project managers know all too well. The job has always demanded the ability to hold a dozen variables in orbit at once, and for most professionals, that’s still mostly a manual process.
AI for Project Management is designed to change that. Taught by Gabbi and built around practical application rather than the inner workings of generative AI, the course introduces AI tools and techniques across the full project lifecycle. That includes everything from planning and work breakdown structures to risk identification, stakeholder communications and scenario analysis—all of the little tasks that keep project managers up at night. The framework follows PMI and PMBOK principles, so the skills map directly onto the workflows project managers already use.
Gabbi’s methodology focuses on introducing a concept, grounding it in a real-world example and then applying it to something in your own work. Beyond a certificate for completing the class, students leave with at least one workflow they can adjust the following Monday.
As a standalone offering, the two-day, online instructor-led course requires no prior technical experience. However, those enrolled in CPE’s Project Management Certificate Program could find it a natural addition.
AI for Nonprofits: The Force Multiplier Your Team Needs
There are few business sectors that do more with less than nonprofits. Theirs is a world of constraint—tight budgets, small teams and leadership whose passion for the cause may outweigh their formal business training. It’s the type of business where mission means more than margin, and that’s exactly why AI may have more to offer nonprofits than almost any other type of organization.
Gabbi runs a nonprofit himself, and his AI for Nonprofits course is built from that personal experience. The curriculum covers high-impact applications across fundraising, donor communications, grant writing and operational efficiency—all common pain points for nonprofits operating with under-resourced teams. This course also addresses ethical considerations unique to the sector, including data privacy, algorithmic bias and how to maintain authentic human connections with the stakeholders who fund the mission.
The course is built around examples like this: Gabbi once walked a coworker through a 30-minute session showing how AI can help with market research, prospect matching and creating outreach documents—a project that would have taken a month to build manually. That’s the kind of immediate, practical application that Gabbi puts into every lesson.
Students who complete the course leave with an AI adoption roadmap tailored to their organization. An optional capstone project allows participants to apply what they’ve learned to a real use case from their own nonprofit work and receive feedback before they implement it, all with no prior technical experience required. AI for Nonprofits is taught online over two half-days by Gabbi.
AI Skills for Modern Professionals: Learn AI Without the Overwhelm
It’s perfectly okay if you don’t have a clear sense of where AI fits into your work yet. Or maybe you’re curious but overwhelmed. Many professionals just like you have been meaning to start learning AI for months and just haven’t found the right entry point. AI Skills for Modern Professionals was built for exactly that person.
The course covers the essentials without relying on technical theory. Core AI and generative AI concepts are explained in plain language, and practical prompting techniques show exactly how non-coders can speak to an AI tool and get meaningful results. Students will learn about real-world applications and even touch on responsible use of AI in professional environments. Everyone who completes the course leaves with at least three use cases specific to their own role, giving them something to act on immediately.
Expect an accessible and low-pressure introduction to AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, as well as a clearer picture of how they fit into your day-to-day work. The workshop involves 2.5 hours of live online instruction, followed by a 60-minute office hour session for questions. No previous technical experience is required.
If you’ve been standing on the shore watching the current, consider this your all aboard.
Start Here, Keep Going
One of the more insightful things Gabbi says about AI literacy is that it has a short shelf life. Take a course today, and you’ll know AI today. By next week, the technology will likely have moved on to something bigger and better. But that’s no reason to avoid learning it. Instead, choose a learning partner like UT Austin’s Center for Professional Education that moves with AI—new courses, new applications and new entry points for professionals at every stage.
Navigating the AI landscape isn’t about mastering everything there is to know about the technology. The professionals who will thrive are the ones who start somewhere, build confidence and keep going. The most important step is the first one.