The world of product management is rapidly evolving. Until recently, it consisted of writing user stories, conducting sprints, and delivering features on schedule. These skills are insufficient today. What corporations demand from product managers now is having a comprehensive understanding of AI technology, knowing when its implementation is relevant, developing products that continue functioning despite the errors made by the model, and transforming prototypes into usable products.
A new position has been born because of the aforementioned reasons: the AI Product Manager. The IIT Kharagpur's Executive Post Graduate Certificate in Building AI Products, Systems & Services will be able to address precisely such a gap in the market. Product Management, AI Systems and Technology, and Business Strategy are combined in one course, allowing professionals to lead AI products rather than support their development teams.
In this article, you'll learn about the curriculum of the program, its target audience, cost, and benefits for your career.
Advance your AI career with the Executive Post Graduate Certificate in Building AI Products, Systems & Services from IIT KGP. Gain practical expertise in designing, developing, and scaling AI-driven products through an industry-focused curriculum and hands-on projects.
Why Product Management Is Becoming an AI-First Skill
Almost every product roadmap today has some AI built into it somewhere. Chatbots, recommendation engines, copilots, and automated workflows are not extras anymore. In many cases, they are the product.
This changes what a product manager is expected to do. The role now needs:
The judgment to tell whether a problem actually fits an AI solution
Comfort designing for uncertainty, since models will not always give the same answer twice
A plan for evaluation and safety before anything goes live
A clear understanding of ongoing costs tied to usage
Close, regular work with engineering teams on retrieval, agents, and model behaviour
Most traditional PM training skips all of this. That is the gap IIT Kharagpur's program is built to fill.
What Is the IIT Kharagpur Program in Building AI Products, Systems & Services
The Executive Post Graduate Certificate in Building AI Products, Systems & Services is offered by IIT Kharagpur, and its creation is driven by a persistent challenge faced by organisations. The problem arises from the requirement of a product manager who is capable of building and delivering AI products, and not just any PM who talks about AI in a meeting. This certificate is an answer to that problem and combines the three disciplines into one certificate.
Key highlights:
Six months long, fully live online, with weekend batches so your job stays untouched
Run by IIT Kharagpur, India's first IIT and ranked fifth in Engineering by NIRF 2025
Taught by IIT Kharagpur faculty alongside people who have actually built AI products in the industry
Nine modules and a capstone project, adding up to more than 72 hours of live teaching
The capstone is defended live in front of an IIT Kharagpur faculty panel
Top 10 percentile performers get a Certificate with Distinction
Graduation ceremony held on campus at IIT Kharagpur
New batch starts 30 September 2026
Who Should Join This Program
This program is designed for people at different stages of their career, as long as they are working toward the same goal: leading AI products.
It is a good fit for:
Current product managers moving into AI-native roles
Aspiring PMs coming from consulting, analytics, or operations
Founders and builders scaling AI-powered products
Engineers and tech leads who want to pair their technical depth with product ownership
Marketing or strategy professionals looking to build a stronger product mindset for AI decisions
The only formal requirement to apply is graduation with at least 50% marks.
Curriculum: What You Will Learn Module by Module
This course curriculum is developed keeping in mind the entire lifecycle of building an AI product, starting from the identification of the right opportunity till the operationalization of the same in a safe manner. It is divided into nine modules:
Module 1: AI Product Opportunity Discovery – Uses the tools like AI Suitability Matrix, and AI Opportunity Canvas to determine if it is worth using AI to solve that problem
Module 2: AI-Native Product Design – Designs the AI behavior as an inherent part of the product experience
Module 3: AI and GenAI Fluency – Gains the real fluency about how large language models work
Module 4: AI Prototyping and Rapid Validation – Tries to turn an idea into a prototype as quickly as possible
Module 5: AI Systems and Agentic Design – Discusses multi-stage workflows that use AI agents
Module 6: AI Evaluation and Red Teaming – Tests the quality of AI systems, their biases and failure modes even before the product launch
Module 7: AI Analytics and Experimentation – Discusses how to measure if your AI feature works at all
Module 8: AI Product Economics and Go-to-Market – Covers pricing, tokenomics and go-to-market strategies
Module 9: AI Operations, Safety and Compliance – Discusses the governance and responsible AI practice
Each of the modules concludes with a deliverable rather than any notes. The course will leave behind an opportunity brief for the AI product, product specification, prototype with the integration of LLM, RAG and agentic system design, and finally the pricing and compliance business case.
The Capstone Project: Build and Defend a Real AI Product
The capstone is not a side project tacked on at the end. It runs alongside the entire six month program, and it is where everything you learn actually comes together.
You pick a real problem, from any domain you choose
You build a complete AI product around it, starting with an opportunity brief and ending with a working prototype and business case
The final step is a live defence in front of an IIT Kharagpur faculty panel, not a slide deck you read off
You are expected to explain and defend every decision you made along the way
This includes handling a real-time curveball, like sudden model drift, on the spot
That last part matters because it mirrors exactly what happens when an AI product runs into trouble in the real world. Nobody hands you a script when a model starts misbehaving in production.
Fees, Eligibility and Admission Process
Eligibility
You need to have graduated with at least 50% marks. That is the only formal requirement.
Fee Structure
The total program fee is ₹1,99,000, taxes included. You can book your seat with ₹10,000, and if you would rather pay in parts, EMI options start from ₹6,825 a month depending on the plan you pick.
Admission Process
It works in a few simple steps. You fill in your application, wait to get shortlisted, and if selected, you get an offer letter. From there, you block your seat and complete document verification.
The next batch kicks off on 30 September 2026, and like the rest of the program, it runs 100% live online on weekends.
Why Learn from IIT Kharagpur
Not many institutions can match the kind of academic weight IIT Kharagpur carries, and that is exactly why this certificate holds up on a resume.
India's first IIT, set up back in 1951
Ranked fifth in Engineering by NIRF 2025, one of the strongest rankings held by any Indian engineering institute
Faculty here are actually working in AI and machine learning research right now, and they teach alongside industry practitioners who bring real product experience into the classroom
The top 10 percentile of each cohort gets a Certificate with Distinction
Certificates are handed out at an on-campus graduation ceremony by the Program Director and institute leadership
Getting your certificate in person, from institute leadership, tells an employer this was not a quick online course. It was something you actually had to work for.
Conclusion
AI is not just an add-on feature anymore. In a lot of products, it is the product. Companies now need people at the top who can spot where AI actually makes sense, build for the fact that models will not always behave the same way twice, judge how well those models are really performing, and launch things without cutting corners on safety.
IIT Kharagpur's Executive Post Graduate Certificate in Building AI Products, Systems & Services gives you exactly that, backed by live faculty teaching, real hands-on projects, and a capstone you defend in person, not on paper. If you want to be the one shaping AI product strategy instead of just reacting to it, this program is a solid place to start.