Generative AI, once a niche experiment, has now become the elephant in the room for most businesses.
Jane Street, a Wall Street trading firm renowned for its algorithmic trading strategies, reportedly generated over $10 billion in net trading revenues in 2023. The firm is also said to have outperformed most Indian trading firms in the derivatives market by achieving substantial profits and impacting a legion of clueless retail traders as collateral damage, according to business press reports. This dominance derives from the competitive edge provided by the trading strategies, particularly in high-frequency trading environments, reshaping global finance.
Similarly, AI in digital advertising generate, test, and deploy content at a humongous scale in real time, enhancing performance. Another upshot of AI is in levelling the playing field for startups, using no-code tools to automate customer service and optimize supply chains, a trend that’s transforming entrepreneurial worlds.
For instance, a 2024 Gartner study predicts that within a year, 65% of all applications will be developed using no-code or low-code tools, with AI powering 45% of the fastest-growing enterprises, highlighting the trend’s significance. A more profound impact can be felt across business functions or verticals as firms gear up to adopt Gen AI. This shift is not only reshaping how businesses operate by automating mundane, repetitive tasks — the so-called ‘boring’ yet essential aspects of running any business — through AI but also making tremendous strides in analyzing complex data that humans cannot process, thereby providing critical insights for decision makers.
Critically engaging with AI
This may sound like a cliché, but as AI reshapes industries, business schools must adapt to ensure their graduates remain relevant in this AI-driven world. Traditional curricula, focused on structured analysis and strategic planning, must now incorporate AI literacy — teaching leaders not just how to use AI, but how to critically engage with it.
Top B- Schools have made a knee-jerk reaction to the ‘AI takeover threat’ by injecting AI into their curriculum or learning experiences. According to a 2024 GMAC survey, 78% of programs in Canada, Asia-Pacific, and Europe have incorporated some aspects of AI into their curriculum.
But is this response an effort to hop onto the AI bandwagon enough to tame the disruptive force of Gen AI?
Data without wisdom
There are obvious faultlines in AI’s godlike prowess. Its ability to process data at an unprecedented scale doesn’t equate to sound judgment. It suffers from algorithmic bias.
AI is not neutral — it inherits biases from its human creators and the quality of the training data, even though it was trained on trillions of records. A well-documented example is the bias in hiring algorithms that favour certain demographic groups, reinforcing systemic inequalities.
Business is not only about optimizing numbers — it requires ethical considerations, empathy, and understanding complex human dynamics. The role of business schools should be to inject these values while integrating AI tools into real-world decision-making scenarios.
Instead of positioning AI as an infallible, omniscient authority, business education should encourage students to interrogate its outputs. And this is where b-schools can play an important role.
Shoshana Zuboff, a professor emerita from Harvard Business School known for her research on information technology and author of the book Surveillance Capitalism, emphasizes the need for critical engagement with the ‘big other’, the AI-powered ubiquitous digital architecture, to understand its ethical and societal impacts. This argument rests on the premise that while AI offers a slew of benefits, it also risks eroding human agency if decisions become too dependent on algorithmic recommendations.
Business education, then, is not just about initiating students on how to use AI, but how to critically evaluate its impact on organizations, economies, and societies. This is because we need to ensure that future leaders maintain control over AI-driven decisions. Thus, in a world of ‘contested information,’ developing skills that enable one to exercise judgment in determining when to rely on AI and when to use human judgment is essential.
AI playbook for B-Schools
To remain relevant, business schools should focus on cultivating uniquely human competencies that AI cannot replicate. By doing so, future business leaders need to recalibrate AI tools to enhance decision-making processes while maintaining accountability and ethical standards. AI can generate insights, but we must provide the necessary context, ethical considerations, and strategic foresight to drive business success.
A 2024 study by McKinsey found that while 72% of executives believe AI can increase efficiency, only 35% have a framework in place for addressing AI-related ethical risks. This gap underscores the need for business education to emphasize the capabilities of AI and its limitations.
How can B-schools breathe life into these philosophical contentions? Take, for instance, an MBA classroom where AI models present multiple business strategies for a corporate merger, ranging from aggressive cost-cutting to phased integration. The learning objective should not be to accept AI’s suggestions at face value but to question their ethical and strategic implications. In such instances, AI can be an ally in revitalizing traditional case study methods, which closely mimic real-world situations as far as B-school curricula is concerned.
The University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management has experimented with AI-driven learning assistants, which answered 12,000 student queries in a single semester, enabling deeper engagement with complex material. Similarly, AI can be used to generate dynamic case studies where variables shift in response to student decisions, mimicking the uncertainties of real-world business environments.
Harvard Business School has incorporated AI-driven competitors into simulations, forcing students to devise strategies against intelligent, evolving algorithms. Schools such as MIT Sloan and Stanford GSB have already begun incorporating AI-driven simulations into their coursework, allowing students to experiment with AI tools in real-world business scenarios. This prepares future leaders to navigate an AI-driven business world where decision-making must go beyond pattern recognition to include creativity, negotiation, and human intuition.
A future in balance
In an era where AI can draft reports, predict market trends, and optimize supply chains, the true value of a business education will lie in cultivating leaders who can think beyond the algorithm. Business schools must go beyond teaching AI as a tool — they must cultivate leaders who can critically assess its role in society.
By embedding AI into curricula through interactive case studies, decision-making exercises, and ethical discussions, business schools can ensure their graduates thrive in an AI-powered world. And the future of business will be shaped by those who can balance AI’s computational power with uniquely human qualities — judgment, creativity, and ethical reasoning.
In conclusion, the question is not whether AI will lead but whether we will lead it. By integrating AI with a focus on critical thinking and ethics, business schools can ensure their graduates are equipped to navigate this transformative era, balancing technological advancement with human judgment.
(Saju B is Associate Professor at VIT Business School, VIT Chennai)
Published – April 03, 2025 08:00 pm IST