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While AI adoption surges, companies still lack the capabilities to introduce it into their workflows, often lacking ownership, process redesign, and strategic coherence. To bring into organizations the new skills needed to work in AI, the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences is launching a new AI-Translator Master's program.
“AI is still too often approached as a technical gimmick,” says Peter Troxler, Professor of the Future of Working. “But the real question is: how do you get AI to land in an organization in a way that works for people, processes, and society? That is where things usually go wrong.”
From hype to strategic application
The Master's program in AI Translator was developed by six universities of applied sciences and targets professionals from government, healthcare, education, and business, among others. The program does not train programmers, but bridge builders: professionals who bring together technology, business, and a human perspective.
Students are educated based on three interconnected roles:
- Strategist – identifies which AI innovations are suitable within a strategic framework
- Advisor – investigates the ethical, legal, and social impact that AI innovations may have and provides advice on this.
- Change Agent – translates and designs interventions for support and embedding in practice.
In addition, students work exclusively on real-world issues from their own organizations. Examples include AI applications in healthcare, mobility, or public services, where effectiveness, ethics, and societal impact are weighed equally.
The Master's in AI Translator will start in September and is designed for professionals, with a part-time class schedule.
Humans as the bottleneck of AI success
The figures are confronting. While individual employees are using AI tools en masse and experiencing them as productivity-enhancing, organization-wide impact often fails to materialize. This has little to do with the quality of the technology but everything to do with how AI lands in organizations: who manages it, what it is intended for, and how it is responsibly embedded in work processes. The rapid technological acceleration makes these questions all the more urgent.
The arrival of the European AI Act also increases the pressure: organizations must demonstrate that they deploy AI responsibly.
“Many organizations are experimenting and searching for ways to make more impact with AI-driven innovations,” says Inge Ploum, lecturer and researcher involved in the master’s program. “Without vision, without shared ownership, and without regard for ethics or social impact. In that case, AI remains a gimmick, not a strategic tool.”