Do I need a technical background, or prior experience with AI?

No to both. AI direction is a business capability, not a technical one — it belongs to anyone who understands their own work deeply and has real work to point AI at.

The diagnostic that starts your journey asks nine questions about your work. Not one of them mentions AI. That is deliberate: what makes someone good at directing AI is judgment about their own domain, not familiarity with any tool. Foundation assumes no prior experience, and concepts are explained through your own work examples rather than jargon.

Whatever your current AI habit is — daily user or complete beginner — it is a starting point, not a requirement. An existing ChatGPT habit is not a shortcoming, and it is not a head start either. Extraction can be trained into direction.

What you do need is three things:

Basic digital fluency. No coding, no programming, no technical AI background.

Access to one suitable generative-AI tool. ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini or another — a free plan is often enough. The program doesn’t mandate a provider or include commercial AI licences, and your organisation’s approved-tool rules always apply. Your coursework and submissions live in the CAIDA Academy, which runs in the browser with nothing to install.

Genuine work you are accountable for. Every assignment and capstone is a real deliverable from your own job. Employed, consulting, freelance, entrepreneurial and nonprofit work all qualify. A fictional case study does not — at least one capstone must show real workplace use, which is the one requirement that cannot be met by someone with nothing real to point the method at.

That last condition is the only genuine barrier, and it has nothing to do with technical skill.