Integrating Digital and AI into Your Strategy
Digital technology is moving faster than managers. To prevent technology from overtaking strategy, emlyon business school offers the certificate “Digital Marketing, AI and Performance.” Delivered over nine days, the program trains decision-makers to master artificial intelligence, structure their approach, and put people back at the heart of the equation.
Taking Back Control of Digital
As tools and buzzwords proliferate : SEO, SEA, automation, generative AI… Many marketing professionals feel overwhelmed. Technologies are accumulating faster than strategic thinking. It is precisely this need for clarity and coherence that the “Digital Marketing, AI and Performance” certificate offered by emlyon business school seeks to address.
This 63-hour executive education program, spread over nine days, is designed for unit managers, project leaders, and marketing managers, whether or not they are already familiar with digital, who hold at least a two-year post-secondary degree and have a minimum of five years’ professional experience. It enables them to structure and modernize their marketing approach, making it more relevant, measurable, and responsible. The program also provides participants with the keys to continue developing their skills throughout their careers and to remain aligned with the constant evolution of digital technologies.
The certificate aims to help participants integrate digital and artificial intelligence at the core of their company’s overall strategy, while teaching them how to select the right tools, understand their limitations, and accurately measure their real performance. The entire approach is rooted in the creation of sustainable and ethical value, fully aligned with contemporary challenges.
For Alice Riou, professor and program designer, the real urgency is no longer about learning the latest trendy tool:
“Digital technology is evolving so fast that the point of singularity is almost reached. All managers feel this technological acceleration. We now need to rethink urgency itself. This program offers a space to pause and reflect on fundamental questions.”
This pedagogical approach encourages professionals to step back, to understand before acting, and to build a solid framework counter to today’s digital frenzy.
Three Modules to Structure, Act, and Measure
AI-enhanced digital marketing draws on a wide range of skills. The challenge is not to master everything, but to connect and orchestrate these capabilities. That is why the certificate is built around three complementary modules, designed to guide participants from strategy to implementation and on to performance evaluation.
- Structuring a Digital Marketing Strategy Integrating AI (3 days)
The first key phase focuses on developing a digital mindset based on curiosity, agility, and experimentation. Participants learn how to build a strategy aligned with their brand identity, while taking into account the cognitive and emotional dimensions of consumers. The goal is not simply to follow trends, but to understand what truly creates value for customers. - Implementing Digital Levers Integrating AI (3 days)
SEO, social media, CRM, automation… This module provides a cross-functional view of digital tools and shows how AI can amplify their effectiveness. Participants learn how to connect these operational levers to build coherent and high-performing campaigns. - Measuring the Performance of AI-Driven Digital Actions (3 days)
The final step focuses on analysis and measurement. How can data be interpreted, weak signals identified, and trends anticipated? The objective is no longer to collect ever more figures, but to turn them into real decision-making levers.
“AI makes it possible to analyze massive volumes of data, personalize messages, and adjust campaigns in real time. But human judgment remains decisive: knowing when to act, when to slow down, when to take risks,” Alice Riou reminds us.
The program also includes reflection on digital marketing ethics, algorithmic bias, and the role of humans in decision-making.
An Immersive, Action-Oriented Pedagogy
Far from being a purely theoretical program, the emlyon certificate is built on learning by doing. Case studies, simulations, business games, presentations, and group projects structure the nine days of training. Each day alternates between conceptual input and immediate application, encouraging fast and tangible learning.
The pedagogy combines three approaches: a retrospective analysis of corporate successes and failures, an examination rooted in participants’ current professional practices, and a forward-looking perspective on tomorrow’s strategies. This method fosters a lasting and critical understanding of digital marketing and artificial intelligence.
Participants interact with six experts from different sectors and work both on their own brand and on their professional identity. “We assess their progress every day. It’s a very effective way to ensure that key concepts are fully understood,” explains Alice Riou.
The program takes place in person on the Lyon or Paris campuses, in groups of 10 to 25 participants. In addition, extended access to digital resources : an online library, asynchronous courses, tutorials, and e-books, allows learning to continue beyond the classroom.
The certificate also grants access to the emlyon alumni community, an active network of 48,000 graduates that fosters exchange and professional opportunities. Eligible for CPF funding, it validates a competency block of the Level 7 RNCP qualification “Operational Unit Manager,” providing official recognition.
People at the Heart of Tomorrow’s Marketing
Beyond technical skills, the emlyon program is a truly transformative experience. Whether executives, entrepreneurs, or professionals in career transition, participants develop a pragmatic perspective on the sometimes excessive promises of all-digital solutions and learn to put people back at the center of digital strategies.
Coming from diverse backgrounds, participants also enrich their journeys through experience sharing, which plays a central role: exchanges of best practices, field feedback, contrasting viewpoints, and co-construction of knowledge fuel collective progress, creating a dynamic in which everyone learns as much from their peers as from academic insights.
This program doesn’t just unlock a project: it allows you to rethink your entire marketing strategy from a 360-degree perspective. It doesn’t merely certify skills; it transforms the way people think and act.
Integral to this pedagogy, continuous monitoring, technological, geopolitical, and ethical, encourages the adoption of a posture of lifelong learning, now essential in a context of constant acceleration and disruption.
True to emlyon’s “makers” vision, the “Digital Marketing, AI and Performance” certificate trains managers capable of anticipating, experimenting, and innovating with discernment. By restoring the central role of human intelligence in artificial intelligence, it highlights intuition, creativity, and critical thinking qualities that no algorithm can replace.