Business schools are now encouraging students to use artificial intelligence to prepare for the new job market

• Business schools are now incorporating artificial intelligence into their curricula to keep graduates competitive.

• They also encourage the use of artificial intelligence in their classes.

• Using just “15-minute short bursts” of AI provides value, the Columbia professor said.

Business schools are relying on artificial intelligence to ensure their graduates are competitive in the labor market.

Many schools are changing their curricula to keep up with rapid technological changes. In some schools, professors are even creating their own specialized AI chatbots to teach students soft skills.

This fall, American University’s Kogod School of Business plans to “infuse artificial intelligence into every part of our curriculum,” its dean, David Marchick, said in a video posted on the school’s website. As part of the initiative, Kogod will offer 20 new classes covering everything from forensic accounting to marketing, according to The Wall Street Journal..

Meanwhile, Hitendra Wadhwa, a Columbia Business School professor who studies leadership, recently launched LiFT. It’s an AI-powered leadership tool that helps students (and others) “plan, prepare and practice for high-stakes events,” according to a press release about its launch.

LiFT is built on OpenAI’s large language models, but is refined with insights Wadhwa has gathered from students and graduates over 15 years of teaching. “Nothing is individually traceable, but when we look at the data we start to generate a lot of statistics from it,” Wadhwa said.

Users can ask the tool for help in dealing with a difficult meeting or prepare for an emotional conversation, Wadhwa said. They also have control over their trainer’s temperament, so they can choose a trainer with a more empathetic tone or a more direct one. “With large language models, we can actually tailor the experience to your needs.”

Wadhwa says students who spend just 15 minutes with the tool three to four times a week are less likely to make snap judgments, are more open to questioning their assumptions, and are better at bridging the divide between opposing viewpoints. “Just 15 minutes in small bursts, small bursts of going to the leadership gym,” he said. “It’s a really good early proof of value.”

The focus on artificial intelligence comes as employers emphasize the technology skills of business school graduates.

According to a 2023 Graduate Management Admissions Council report, about 75% of U.S. employers said technology skills, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, data visualization, and coding skills, are important for business school graduates. Yet fewer than half of U.S. employers believe graduates are adequately prepared. More than 60% of U.S. employers said technology skills will become more important for graduates in the coming years.

But professors aren’t just thinking about AI in terms of their students’ career prospects. They also want them to see the bigger picture of how AI is shaping the future of work.

Ethan Mollick, a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, calls the use of AI an “emerging skill” and requires all of his students to use ChatGPT.

This spring, he tasked students with automating some of their work and told them to expect uncertainty about their abilities as they came to understand the capabilities of AI, the Journal reported. “You haven’t used AI until you’ve had an existential crisis,” Mollick told his students, according to the Journal. “You need three sleepless nights.”

Wadhwa advocates a gentler approach.

“My take is that any time you engage in any activity in life from a place of fear or scarcity, it will simply limit the amount of joy you can have.”

Read the original article on Business Insider