Basics of Artificial Intelligence: AI Literacy for the Workplace

This one-week, 40-hour online intensive previews the business, technology, and professional programs at Elite Royal International Career College, including the Cybersecurity Analyst diploma and the Post-Graduate Diploma in Project Management. Students learn what artificial intelligence is, how machine learning systems are built and judged, how generative AI and large language models produce text and images, how to write effective prompts and verify what comes back, and how to use AI responsibly under Canadian privacy law and workplace policy. The course follows the published skills outlines of widely recognised entry credentials, the CompTIA AI Essentials program and the Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals certification (exam AI-900), and is grounded in the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0), the OECD AI Principles, the responsible AI principles published by Microsoft and Google, and Government of Canada guidance on the use of generative AI. It builds the practical AI literacy that Canadian employers now expect in almost every office, service, and technical role.

Who this course is for

Working adults who are being asked to use AI tools at work and want to understand them properly, career changers preparing for administrative, business, customer service, or technology roles, newcomers to Canada who want a recognised, Canada-specific grounding in workplace AI, small business owners deciding whether and how to adopt AI, and students deciding whether a full business or technology diploma is the right next step. No programming or mathematics background is required; every calculation in the course can be done with a calculator or a free spreadsheet.

What you will learn

• Day 1, What AI Is. The definition and history of artificial intelligence, narrow versus general AI, the difference between rule-based systems and learning systems, how machine learning and deep learning relate, where AI already operates in daily Canadian life, and Canada’s place in AI research through Mila, Vector, Amii, and the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy.
• Day 2, How Machine Learning Works. Data, features, and labels; training, validation, and testing; supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning; a worked example from raw data to prediction; overfitting; and evaluation metrics such as accuracy, precision, and recall explained in plain language.
• Day 3, Generative AI and Large Language Models. Tokens, next-token prediction, context windows, hallucination, and image generation; prompt-writing techniques with worked examples; and the professional habit of verifying every output before it is used.
• Day 4, Responsible AI. Bias and fairness, transparency and accountability, privacy under PIPEDA, intellectual property, user-level security risks such as prompt injection and data leakage, workplace AI policies, and academic integrity.
• Day 5, AI at Work and Your AI-Ready Career in Canada. Productivity use cases by industry, automation versus augmentation, how to evaluate an AI tool, credentials such as AI-900, and how AI is changing existing Canadian jobs.

How the course works

Each day combines five core lessons, each followed by a short quiz, two guided readings, Canadian context notes, and four or five hands-on labs using free tools. Everything is written and fully self-paced: there are no live sessions and no video lessons, so you can study on any schedule and on any device. Drill sets on selected days give extra scenario practice. The week closes with a 25-question final examination and a capstone project, the AI Adoption Proposal, in which students plan the responsible introduction of AI into one workflow at a real or invented Canadian small business. Students who pass the quizzes and the final examination and submit the capstone receive the ERICC Certificate of Completion.

Where it leads

This primer is the recommended first step toward the college’s Cybersecurity Analyst diploma, Cybersecurity Specialist co-op diploma, and Post-Graduate Diploma in Project Management, and toward independent study for entry AI credentials such as Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals (AI-900), CompTIA AI Essentials, and Google AI Essentials. It is also a stand-alone credential of AI literacy for any role in which you will use AI tools at work.

Pricing and duration

The course is offered at a regular price of $149.99, with a current sale price of $99.99. Enrolment includes 10 weeks of access to all course materials, and the course is designed for 40 study hours, which most students complete in one intensive week or spread across several weeks of part-time study.