Online Master of Professional Studies in Applied AI
For technical and analytical professionals ready to build and lead AI systems. No computer science degree required.
Build core AI skills across machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and computer vision, with concentrations in Conversational AI & Chatbots or Machine Learning for Cybersecurity. You'll graduate with evidence of the skills employers are hiring for.
A Degree Built for the Problems
You Need to Solve with AI.
Applied AI is the practice of building AI systems, not researching new ones. Graduates who do this well are often hired as Applied AI Engineers: they build the applications, data pipelines, and interfaces powered by machine learning and large language models that companies rely on. It's a demanding degree to earn, and this program is built to get you there.
You don't need a computer science degree to belong here. Professionals build technical and analytical skill in more ways than a transcript can show: on the job, through other technical fields, and through the work itself. What gets you into this program is your capability, not a specific program name on your undergraduate degree. Through the Fast App, you prove that capability in two graduate-level pathway courses. The Standard Application has academic prerequisites.
The faculty of the College of Professional Studies are scholar-practitioners. They pair academic credentials with active, hands-on experience in the fields they teach, and are accomplished professionals across a wide range of industries.
Your diploma reads: Northeastern University, College of Professional Studies, Master of Professional Studies in Applied AI. It won't say "online." Same degree, same institutional recognition, regardless of how you earned it.
- CredentialMaster of Professional Studies
- ProgramApplied AI
- CollegeCollege of Professional Studies
- UniversityNortheastern University
Two ways to join
No GRE, no essays, no recommendations, no application fee. Any bachelor's degree qualifies. Instead of meeting academic prerequisites upfront, you start with two real Applied AI courses and earn admission through performance. Both courses count toward your degree.
Submit Fast App →Traditional admissions review before you begin. Academic prerequisites apply. Best if you need federal financial aid from your first course or want your credentials reviewed upfront.
Standard Application →Charged per course at enrollment. Take a term off without penalty. Full details and scholarship information at Tuition & payment details →
Federal financial aid is available for Standard Application students from day one, and for Fast App students after completing their two pathway courses. If federal aid is a priority from the start, the Standard Application is the right path.
The pay-as-you-go structure makes it straightforward to align with most employer reimbursement cycles, including tuition assistance up to the IRS Section 127 annual limit. Employer reimbursement toolkit →
Online learning at Northeastern isn't solitary. You'll join an active cohort of working professionals from across industries and time zones. People doing real technical and analytical work, who bring live problems into every discussion and make the learning sharper as a result.
Every Northeastern Online student has access to the same career resources as on-campus students: the Northeastern Career Center, employer connections, job boards, and recruiting events. The Northeastern name opens the same doors, regardless of how you earned it.
Beyond career services, you have access to any Northeastern campus for studying, meetings, or events. Across the US, from Boston to Oakland, Miami to Silicon Valley. And a dedicated online success team is with you for the full length of your program, making sure you always know your next step.
*List price is $26,146, or $769 per credit. From $24,577, or $723 per credit, with automatically applied scholarships, depending on admissions pathway. Pay-as-you-go, charged per course at enrollment. Take a term off without penalty. Full details and scholarship information at Tuition & payment details →.
Does any of this sound like you?
"My team already comes to me when a project touches AI."
You're already the person your team turns to when a project touches AI, even though nothing on your résumé says so yet. This program adds the credential, plus the technical range in machine learning, NLP, and computer vision, that round out what the job alone hasn't taught you.
"I have the technical depth. I want to point it at AI."
You've built technical or analytical depth somewhere else: cybersecurity, data science, software engineering. Now you're ready to point that expertise directly at AI instead of picking up scattered tools on the side.
"I'm not pausing my career to go back for a degree."
100% online, fully asynchronous, pay-as-you-go. Built for professionals with full lives who need graduate education that works around them.
"I want a US credential without relocating."
Earn a Northeastern credential fully online, from anywhere in the world. Note: this program does not confer F-1 visa eligibility.
What Graduates Do in Applied AI Jobs,
and What They Earn.
Applied AI graduates move into roles like Applied AI Engineer (median salary $133,080), where they build applications, data pipelines, and interfaces powered by machine learning or LLMs, and Applied Scientist (median salary $140,910), combining domain knowledge with data science and statistical modeling. Emerging roles include AI Solutions Architect, who designs the infrastructure to scale AI across an enterprise, and Forward-Deployed Engineer, who partners directly with client organizations to deploy custom AI systems in production.
Because the industry is evolving rapidly, verifiable salary data for many AI job titles doesn't yet exist. As such, these roles have been mapped to occupations tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Salary figures represent national median wages across all experience levels. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2024 (wages), and Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 (growth and openings). Figures do not reflect expected starting salaries. Listed roles are representative, not a guarantee of outcome.
Applied AI Skills You Can Prove,
Not Just Claim.
Employers hiring for Applied AI jobs want proof of applied capability, not just familiarity with the concept. Proof of your skills is built into the Integrated Experiential Capstone, the final course of the program, where you complete a full AI project from start to finish. This project can double as a piece in your professional AI portfolio: something valuable you can show an interviewer, not just tell them about.
Human-Centered AI Design
Integrate human-computer interaction and usability principles into AI system design, so the systems you build hold up with the people who use them.
Applied Machine Learning
Build, evaluate, and deploy supervised and unsupervised models, including deep learning architectures, for real business and research problems.
Generative AI Application and Optimization
Design, build, and iteratively improve generative AI applications and prompts for practical business use cases.
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Design and refine NLP systems in a project-based format, solving problems that mirror industry and research scenarios rather than pure theory.
Computer Vision
Explore essential computer vision techniques, tools, and uses, and apply them to real-world situations.
AI Systems Communication
Translate model outputs and AI system behavior for technical and non-technical audiences alike, through data visualization, dashboards, and reporting.
Applied AI Ethics and Governance
Evaluate the privacy, fairness, and ethical implications of AI systems as a standard part of the design process, not an afterthought.
Ready to talk about your goals?
Get program details, deadlines, and scholarship information for the Online MPS in Applied AI.
Three Applied AI Concentrations.
One Northeastern Degree.
Choose a concentration to go deeper in the direction your career is already heading. Or personalize your degree with a mix of eligible electives. Every path leads to the same degree.
Conversational AI & Chatbots
Designing conversation flows, anticipating what a user actually means, fixing a bot that keeps missing the point. This concentration builds on your instincts with formal training in chatbot architecture, applied reinforcement learning, and generative AI design.
For AI practitioners ready to build production-grade conversational systems.
Also seen in Applied AI jobs: Conversational AI Designer and NLP Engineer.
Prerequisites apply. See the full course list in Curriculum below.
Median wages, all experience levels. BLS, May 2024. Listed roles are representative, not a guaranteed outcome.
Machine Learning for Cybersecurity
Flagging anomalies, tightening access controls, chasing down a breach before it spreads. This concentration adds formal training in AI-driven threat detection, cyberdetection modeling, and applied security analysis.
For security practitioners ready to bring machine learning into the fight.
Also seen in Applied AI jobs: Machine Learning Security Engineer and Threat Intelligence Analyst.
Prerequisites apply. See the full course list in Curriculum below.
Median wages, all experience levels. BLS, May 2024. Listed roles are representative, not a guaranteed outcome.
Personalized / No Concentration
Select any combination of courses from the concentrations above.
For professionals whose path doesn't map neatly to one concentration, or who want maximum flexibility.
Also seen in Applied AI jobs: Machine Learning Engineer, Prompt Engineer, and AI Governance Specialist.
Mix across concentrations freely. Prerequisites apply.
Median wages, all experience levels. BLS, May 2024. Listed roles are representative, not a guaranteed outcome.
See Career Outcomes for more information about each role and its associated salary.
Ready to get started?
Get program information or start your Fast App.
The Online Master's in Applied AI,
Course by Course.
The MPS in Applied AI curriculum contains 18 credits of core and required elective coursework, a 4-credit capstone, and 12 credits in a concentration or elective path. If you're enrolling through the Fast App, you'll start with AAI 6600 and AAI 6610. Both count toward your degree from day one.
Why Earn Your Applied AI Degree
at Northeastern Online?
Apply to the Online MPS in Applied AI:
Two Paths In.
Both paths lead to the same Northeastern University degree. They differ in what you need to show before you start: the Standard Application has academic prerequisites, while the Fast App lets you prove your readiness in the coursework itself.
not the application.
Fast App deadline extended. Submit by to start Spring A 2027.
Your admission is earned by passing two actual Applied AI courses with a B or better, not by essays or test scores.
Full admission before you begin.
The Spring A 2027 Standard Application deadline has passed. See upcoming terms →
Master's in Applied AI
Frequently Asked Questions. Answered.
An MS (Master of Science) typically leans more research- and theory-heavy, often requiring a thesis or deeper technical prerequisites. An MPS (Master of Professional Studies) is built for working professionals and focuses on applying AI skills directly to a job, with less emphasis on original research.
In practice, an MPS in Applied AI and an MS in Applied AI can cover very similar coursework. The primary difference is usually in how research-focused the program is.
Yes. The MPS in Applied AI is also offered on the ground at five Northeastern campuses: Boston, Arlington, Miami, Portland, and Toronto. Both formats award the same Master of Professional Studies in Applied AI from the College of Professional Studies.
If you take two courses per half-term, the program will take approximately 16+ months to complete. Most students take one to two courses per term.
Yes. The program is 100% asynchronous with no set class times, built for working professionals managing a full-time job alongside coursework. Expect 10 to 15 hours per week per course.
It depends on your admissions path. Both paths require a conferred bachelor's degree, and neither requires a computer science degree, the GRE, or the GMAT. Both lead to the same degree.
Fast App: A bachelor's degree in any field qualifies. Skip the traditional application and prove your readiness in the coursework itself. Complete the two pathway courses, AAI 6600 Applied Artificial Intelligence and AAI 6610 Applied Machine Learning, earn a B or better in each, and submit proof of your undergraduate degree. No GRE, no essays, no application fee. Federal aid is not available during the pathway courses.
Standard Application: Students must have a degree in engineering, computer technology, or coursework in place of statistics. Your transcripts, résumé, and statement of purpose are reviewed before you begin. Best if you need federal financial aid from day one, want your credentials reviewed upfront, are an international applicant, or are bringing in transfer credit you want evaluated before enrolling.
From $24,577 with automatically applied scholarships, or $723 per credit. List price is $26,146, or $769 per credit. See full tuition and scholarship details at Tuition & payment details →
Federal financial aid is available for Standard Application students from day one, and for Fast App students after completing their pathway courses. Employer reimbursement is available up to the IRS Section 127 annual limit for many employer tuition assistance programs.
No. Professionals build technical and analytical skill in more ways than a transcript can show: on the job, through other technical fields, and through the work itself. What gets you into this program is your capability, not a specific program name on your undergraduate degree.
How you show that capability depends on your path. The Standard Application has academic prerequisites: Students must have a degree in engineering, computer technology, or coursework in place of statistics. The Fast App lets you prove your readiness in two graduate-level pathway courses instead.
Master's-level graduate transfer credit is capped at 10 semester hours, awarded case by case for graduate-level courses earned at accredited institutions with a grade of B or better. Your enrollment coach can review specific coursework with you before you enroll.
No. The online MPS in Applied AI does not confer F-1 visa eligibility. The on-ground program, offered full-time or part-time at five Northeastern campuses, does.
College of Professional Studies faculty, who are scholar-practitioners. They pair academic credentials with active, hands-on experience in the fields they teach, and are accomplished professionals across a wide range of industries. The faculty who teach on-ground also teach online.
Yes, in full. AAI 6600 and AAI 6610 are core courses in the program. When you complete both with a B or better, you're fully admitted and those 6 credits are already done.
Choose Personalized / No Concentration. You'll select any combination of courses from the Conversational AI & Chatbots and Machine Learning for Cybersecurity concentrations to fill your 12 concentration credits. Every path leads to the same degree.
Yes. You only pay when enrolled. Take a term off without penalty, which suits professionals navigating busy seasons or life changes.
Ready to learn more,
or ready to enroll?
Share a few basic details and we'll send you more information about the Online MPS in Applied AI, including deadlines and scholarship details. Ready to enroll? Answer a few additional questions to complete your Fast App.