New curriculum preps undergrads for an AI-driven future

A new campus-wide 100-level course, and separate degree option in computer science, are designed to help UBC students succeed in an AI-driven future.

This fall, UBC is launching two new educational offerings designed to give students the tools and insights they need to navigate the evolving scientific, professional, and ethical landscape presented by artificial intelligence (AI).

The first is the 100-level Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, a course open to all UBC Vancouver students that takes a holistic, interdisciplinary view of the burgeoning technology. In addition, a new degree option will give students in computer science the opportunity to focus the last two years of their undergraduate degree on developing dedicated technical expertise in AI.

“AI is transforming industry, science, and teaching, and having increasingly profound societal impacts,” said Dr. Mark MacLachlan, Dean of the Faculty of Science.

“The combination of a broad introductory course and a focused CS degree option will give students across campus access to some of the best computer science expertise in the world—tailored to a level that meets students’ needs.”

Building AI literacy across disciplines

AI 100 offers students a non-technical—but comprehensive—overview of AI’s fundamental characteristics, methods, and limitations, and how modern AI systems are developed.

“This is about offering students foundational literacy in AI that will stand the test of time,” said Dr. Kevin Leyton-Brown, a computer scientist who will be teaching the inaugural offering of AI 100 this fall.

“It will give students a non-coding foundation in how AI works and help them better understand it from the perspective of the disciplines they’re interested in pursuing—whether in business, law, education, or beyond.”

The second half of the course focuses on team- and lab-based work that enables students to apply AI tools to projects related to their specific program of study. The ethical and societal implications of AI—economic, cultural, scientific, environmental and political—will also be woven into the coursework.

“Soft skills are extremely, extremely important,” said third-year UBC business and computer science student Karan Chick. “Developing some background and confidence in the first year, understanding the limitations of AI and its ethical and the social implications, will be really interesting and valuable.”

While the class will take advantage of AI tools in teaching and learning, much of the classroom exploration will rely on team communication, analysis, and collaboration and interactions with TAs.

The first year of the course--open for Fall 2026 registration--will have an intake of roughly 350 students across three sections.

New AI option for computer science students

Graduates taking UBC’s new AI option will have the strong computer science foundation they need to develop and deploy robust and safe software. They’ll combine that foundation with advanced courses on important facets of artificial intelligence–from developing machine learning models to demonstrating how state-of-the-art AI transforms fields such as natural language processing and robotics.

“The AI option addresses an immediate need for both students and industry,” said Dr. Margo Seltzer, co-head of the department of computer science at UBC.

“Our colleagues in industry tell us they need students who know how to select tools and assemble them into useful AI-driven pipelines as well as those who understand AI methods deeply and are prepared to help advance the field. The AI option does both.”

“An understanding of integrating AI tools is so useful,” says Cindy Cue, a fifth-year computer science student whose time at UBC has spanned the pre- and post- AI explosion era.

“Building new models isn’t particularly my path, but learning to properly prompt, properly review, and understanding all the ways to leverage different models for business needs is crucial for onboarding in professional environments.”

In addition to a new course in deep learning, the degree option pulls together courses in core areas such as natural language processing and computer vision, and in adjacent areas such as data management, human-computer interaction, optimization, visualization, and advanced algorithms and data structures.

Computer science students who completed CPSC 213 and 221 by the end of April 2026 and are interested in pursuing the AI can find more details, and apply, here.

After completing the new course of study, students earn an AI option designation on their transcript. The option is also available to students in UBC's Bachelor of Computer Science–designed for graduates who already have a bachelor's degree outside of computer science.