In 2024, a study from the University of Pennsylvania predicted that 49% of workers may have half or more of their tasks exposed to LLMs. Columbia Business School, meanwhile, discovered that 76% of business owners are concerned about their own integration of AI. And, more recently, Microsoft researchers compiled a list of the 40 jobs most exposed to AI, sparking debate around the impact this will have on the workforce.
AI rings in the ears of the workforce, and, since MBA students are preparing to lead that workforce, AI is on their minds, too. GMAC reported that 46% of prospective business school students now name AI as an essential and expected element of their curriculum.
However, the integration of AI into business schools is not a unanimously supported move.
Accrediting body AACSB surveyed deans and faculty across business schools to gauge perspectives on GenAI and better understand its adoption. The survey garnered “open-ended responses” that revealed a “complex mix of emotions about GenAI.” They concluded that “while the majority of educators and leaders acknowledge that GenAI is here to stay—viewing it as a critical skill for preparing students to be workforce-ready—there is also a sense of cautious optimism, even among its proponents, and clear apprehension from others.”
Plus, it’s important not to overemphasize AI’s importance in the greater context of leadership development. GMAC’s report reveals that employers emphasize “human skills like emotional intelligence, adaptability, and coachability” in their search for employees, noting that candidates tend to undervalue the development of these skills in curricula.
Despite these hesitations, business schools are integrating AI at a rapid pace. By the end of 2024, GMAC reported that 78% of business schools teach AI in some form on their curriculum.
Let’s take a look at what that looks like across six top business schools.
Chicago Booth
In July 2025, Chicago Booth announced a new offering to MBA students: a concentration in Applied Artificial Intelligence. The academic addition reflects a world in which AI – be that generative AI, machine learning, natural language processing or others – has been rapidly adopted into organizational strategies, is transforming business operations, and is prevalent in all areas of nearly all industries.
Leaders entering this increasingly AI-driven world need the technical skills to manage it. Challenges will arise and changes will be rife; Booth’s new AI concentration prepares future leaders for this reality.
The concentration will incorporate courses such as AI Essentials, Machine Learning in Finance, and Starting an AI Company, and will give students access to the resources offered by Booth’s Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence (CAAI). Sanjog Misra, the Charles H. Kellstadt Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing and Applied AI and faculty director of the CAAI, described the booth approach to AI education as “transformational.” The new concentration will “challenge students to think differently, not just about algorithms, but about how AI reshapes human capital, decision-making, and society itself.”
Columbia Business School
In April 2024, Columbia Business School described “fluency with AI” as a key skill for all MBA graduates. The comment followed the school’s launch of a new program: “The Business of AI: Shaping the Future of Business with Generative AI” – one that aims to empower students and future business leaders to confidently tackle the challenges and embrace the opportunities of AI.
In October 2025, Columbia Business School launched its new AI in Business Initiative, aiming to advance industry understanding of the intersection of AI and the world of business. The Initiative reimagines Columbia’s existing Digital Future Initiative, and will bridge AI theory and application by fueling AI-related research, teaching and learning across the business school and into the industry beyond. The Initiative will be directed by Professor Omar Besbes, Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business in the Decision, Risk, & Operations Division.
MIT Sloan
MIT Sloan announced in September 2024 the launch of many new courses; ones that “mirror business leaders’ priorities.”
Amongst these courses are two that focus on the management of AI: “AI Foundations for MBAs” and “Generative AI for Managers.”
Acknowledging the uneven enthusiasm of responses to artificial intelligence, “AI Foundations for MBAs” aims to “level the playing field” amongst incoming MBAs when it comes to AI experience. This course takes the form of a workshop, led by professor of global economics and management and lead faculty for the MIT Sloan Generative AI Hub for Teaching and Learning, Eric So. The workshop explores, amongst other topics, AI’s productivity-enhancing potential, ethical considerations around its use, and choosing the right AI tools.
Pitched at incoming MBA students, the workshop is highly recommended as a preparation for the AI content engrained in the MIT Sloan MBA curriculum.
“Generative AI for Managers,” the second of the new AI-focused courses, is a class led by associate professor of information technology John Horton. Through its exploration of the tools that allow leaders to excel in an generative AI-driven world, the course aims to help managers understand what AI can do, what it can’t, and what that means for the industry.
The class will examine existing AI use cases, AI implications across the world of business, including across startups and venture capital, LLMs, prompt engineering, and more.
Northwestern Kellogg
Northwestern Kellogg’s adoption of AI takes two forms. The first was the 2024 launch of a new MBAi, an entire program dedicated to the intersection of business management and AI technology. At the core of the program a typical MBA program remains, but this is paired with opportunities to practice analytic technologies, learn programming languages, and get to grips with the interdependency of business and AI.
The second is the offering of multiple new AI-focused courses that explore the use of AI in business, its impact on marketing and customer analytics, and the ethics and challenges which arrive alongside its implementation.
The most recent of these courses were announced in May 2025 and launched this Fall. The courses are on offer to Full-Time MBA and Evening & Weekend MBA students, focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning, and prepare students to “ask the right questions, spot the best opportunities and guide their teams through both innovation and ethical application using these new tools.”
“This new curriculum is about more than technology,” explained Kellogg Deputy Dean Jan Van Mieghem, “it’s about equipping students with the strategic mindset to lead responsibly in a world shaped by it.”
At the center of these courses is “AI Foundations for Managers.” This foundational, practical and cross-disciplinary course is delivered across five weeks and by five departments – allowing students to understand AI from multiple business contexts, and to better determine which of these angles interests them most.
On “AI Foundations for Managers,” students will explore themes such as ethics and governance, Generative AI, and AI in business. Students who wish to do so will have the opportunity to join advanced electives that dive further into AI’s implications across the world of business.
Pennsylvania Wharton
In 2024, Pennsylvania Wharton made the somewhat trailblazing move to partner with Open AI – empowering and enabling its students to engage with and even to shape the future of generative AI. To facilitate its new initiatives, Wharton also established the Wharton AI Research Fund (for the pursuit of projects exploring the intersection of AI advancement with modern industries, business models, and economies) and the Education Innovation Fund (for the provision of resources with which to reimagine how AI is incorporated into classroom instruction and course materials).
Now, in 2025, Wharton has launched a new major for MBA students: “Artificial Intelligence for Business.”
Commenting on the launch, Wharton Dean Erika James remarked that “it is no longer a question of if, but how artificial intelligence will fundamentally alter every aspect of business and society, and business schools have a crucial role to play in ensuring that AI adoption leads to positive outcomes.”
The new major is a step towards these positive outcomes. Its content ensures not only that students are equipped with the necessary skills to lead in an increasingly AI-driven world, but that they are able to do so responsibly. This is largely due to the major’s inclusion of a mandatory ethics course, called “Big Data, Big Responsibilities: Toward Accountable Artificial Intelligence,” which trains students to tackle the “ethical, economic, legal and societal issues AI raises.” The ethics course will be led by Professor Kevin Werbach, director of the newly established Accountable AI Lab, and sit alongside courses in areas such as applied machine learning, data science, neuroscience, data engineering, and statistics.
The major, which is supported by the Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative, reiterates Wharton’s drive to “match student interest and meet the growing needs of the global business landscape.”
UVA Darden
Ahead of the 2025-2026 academic year, Virginia Darden added several new courses to its curriculum.
The offerings “reflect Darden’s commitment to combining cutting-edge thinking with enduring leadership principles.” Accordingly, they feature AI: such as the “Artificial Intelligence for Customer Growth” course.
This AI-focused course lands in the Marketing segment of MBAs, and explores how AI might be harnessed to acquire, engage, and retain customers. This is an area of business that is being transformed by AI, and students will examine how advanced AI tools intersect with these operations.
