AI Upgrade for Creative Professionals

Join Our Next Cohort! 6-Week Live Online Course

Attention digital dreamweavers, pixel prophets, and narrative ninjas!

The AI revolution isn't coming. It's here. And it's about to supercharge your creative toolkit.

Join long-time UC Berkeley lecturer Peter Bittner and cyber-artist Kris Krug on a 6-week journey to the bleeding edge of AI-powered creativity. This isn't your grandma's online course - it's a full-throttle dive into the future of design, marketing, and storytelling.

What You’ll Gain:

This isn’t just another AI course…

We're not here to replace your creativity - we're here to amplify it. This is about arming you with the knowledge, skills, and community to ride the AI wave instead of being washed away by it. We work with each student individually to help you get real results out of the course!

Course Payload:

Who Should Attend:

• Strategic Communicators: Brand strategists, PR professionals, and advertising executives exploring AI-driven approaches to brand narrative and audience engagement.

• Writers & Storytellers: Copywriters, creative writers, and journalists interested in how AI can transform storytelling, content creation, and editorial processes.

• Education & Development Experts: Educators, trainers, and professional development specialists looking to integrate AI tools and methodologies into their curricula and training programs.

• Design & Creative Arts Professionals: Graphic designers, art directors, illustrators, multimedia artists, animators, and designers looking to incorporate AI into their creative processes.

• Visual Content Creators: Photographers, videographers, content creators, and social media managers aiming to leverage AI for enhanced visual narratives.

• Digital & Visual Communicators: UX/UI designers, web designers, and digital marketers seeking to optimize user experiences and digital campaigns with AI.

Capstone Projects: Bringing AI to Your Creative Practice

The cornerstone of our AI Upgrade for Creative Professionals course is the personalized capstone project. This hands-on component allows you to apply AI techniques directly to your work, solving real challenges in your creative field. Here are some examples of capstone projects our students have completed or might undertake:

For Writers and Content Creators

• Develop a custom AI writing assistant trained on your personal style for faster first drafts

• Create an AI-powered content strategy tool that generates topic ideas based on trending data

• Build an automated fact-checking system to enhance the accuracy of your journalism

For Visual Artists and Designers

• Design an AI model that generates on-brand illustrations for your company's marketing materials

• Create a style transfer algorithm to apply your unique artistic style to client photographs

• Develop an AI-assisted UI/UX design tool that suggests layout improvements based on user behavior data

For Marketers and Brand Strategists

• Build a predictive analytics model to optimize social media posting times and content types

• Create an AI-powered brand voice analyzer to ensure consistency across multiple writers

• Develop a personalized recommendation engine for e-commerce product listings

For Filmmakers and Video Creators

• Design an AI-assisted video editing tool that automatically creates highlight reels

• Develop a script analysis AI that provides feedback on pacing and dialogue

• Create an AI model that generates storyboards from written scene descriptions

For Photographers

• Build an AI-powered image organization system that auto-tags and categorizes your photo library

• Develop a custom AI filter that mimics your signature post-processing style

• Create an AI assistant that helps select the best shots from a photoshoot based on composition and technical quality

For Musicians and Audio Producers

• Design an AI-powered music composition tool that generates melodies in your style

• Create an automated mixing assistant that suggests EQ and compression settings

• Develop an AI model that generates lyrics based on themes and emotional tones

For Game Designers

• Build an AI system that procedurally generates game levels based on player behavior

• Create an NPC dialogue generator that adapts to player choices and game events

• Develop an AI-powered playtesting tool that simulates various player strategies

  These capstone projects are just a starting point. Our course is designed to help you identify the most impactful way to integrate AI into your specific creative workflow. You'll work closely with our instructors to define, develop, and refine a project that addresses your unique professional needs and pushes the boundaries of your creative field.

Course Schedule:

Weekly Outline

• Week 1: Generative AI & the Future of Creative Industries

• Week 2: WordSmiths & Workflows: Textual Alchemy with AI

• Week 3: Creative Imagery: Crafting Visual Content with AI

• Week 4: The Art of Innovation: Designing Advanced AI Assistants

• Week 5: The Ethics of AI: Responsible Design and Creation

• Week 6: Capstone: Your AI-Powered Creative Project

Course Investment: $1,499

$1,299 before September 16th!

(Additional discounts available for NGOs, educators, freelancers, and group enrollments. Contact: peter@theupgrade.ai)

About the Instructors:

Kris Krug and Peter Bittner, a dynamic duo with a shared history of collaboration, bring their unique expertise and perspectives to this 6-week certificate course aimed at creatively leveraging AI in communications, marketing, and content creation. Their partnership, rooted in mutual support and complementary skills, was forged during the Google News Initiative Pre-Launch Lab and Accelerator. Together, they've previously led a successful course and series of workshops. Individually, they offer specialized workshops for professional communicators and creatives.

Kris Krüg

Techartist, quasi-sage, cyberpunk anti-hero from the future.

My name is Kris Krug – a boundary-pushing creative explorer, an intuitive tech whisperer, and a tenacious culture hacker. In the fabric of the digital era, where technology often overshadows humanity, I’ve taken it upon myself to chart a different course.

I’m on a relentless mission to humanize technology, to infuse it with empathy, ethics, and emotion. I’m not just tinkering with gadgets and algorithms; I’m reprogramming the very core of our interactions with the digital world to resonate with the heartbeat of human experience.

But that’s only part of my mission. I’m also in the ring, gloves on, ready to battle the creeping villain of apathy that threatens to numb our society. I challenge indifference with passion, confront disconnection with engagement, and replace the passive consumption of media with active creation.

I stand firm in the belief that art shouldn’t be a rarefied luxury, but a common language for all. By democratizing art, I aim to unlock a universal creative potential. Art is a right, not a privilege, and I strive to make it accessible to everyone, everywhere – breaking down the walls that confine creativity to the few.

In parallel, I’m a champion of communities, believing in the colossal power of collective action. Empowering communities is not just about giving a voice to the voiceless; it’s about amplifying that voice until it echoes across the globe. It’s about lighting a fire in every individual to contribute, connect, and collaborate.

Peter Bittner

Peter is the founder and CEO of The Upgrade. For the past 8 years, Peter has been a visiting lecturer of new media at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and an instructor at the Advanced Media Institute, where he has taught emerging media. He was formerly a visiting instructor at CELSA-Paris Sorbonne. Additionally, Peter leads custom media workshops for organizations.

His photography and videography have been published on the front page of The New York Times and in CNN, Bloomberg, NBC, Reuters, Vox, Business Insider, Hearst Digital, Al Jazeera, Popular Mechanics, VICE News, and other major outlets. Peter is a Fulbright Scholar and has covered science, sports, travel, politics, and culture — and has a special knack for projects that get him outdoors and off the grid.

The future is collaborative. It's AI-powered. And it starts here.

Are you ready to upgrade your creative OS?

Enroll now and join the AI creative revolution!