More than three quarters of MBA and business master's programs have integrated artificial intelligence (AI) into their curricula, with a focus on its role in business ethics, decision-making, practical applications, and strategy development, according to the survey published last month by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC).

Since the rise of generative AI prompted by the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in late November 2022, business schools are responding to prospective students' growing expectations for AI in their coursework and employers' projected demand for AI competencies in the coming years. Earlier this year, GMAC's survey of over 4,000 prospective business school students around the world revealed a significant jump in the number of candidates who say AI is essential to their ideal business school curriculum—now up to 40 percent. Later in the year, GMAC's survey of nearly 1,000 corporate recruiters worldwide—half from Global Fortune 500 companies—showed that employers, though not too concerned about business school graduates' knowledge of AI just yet, anticipated its importance to grow immensely in the next five years.

"There is no doubt that business schools have taken it up a notch in responding to market imperatives in technological advancements, without losing sight of delivering core competencies like strategic thinking and problem-solving," said Joy Jones, CEO of GMAC. "This year's soaring applications to graduate business programs proves that business schools are on the right track meeting student demands head on, helping graduates upskill with employer's most coveted capabilities in an AI-affected world."

A grassroots approach

To better understand how business schools around the world have worked AI into curriculum development, administrative processes, and strategic applications, GMAC launched an AI in Business Education case study series throughout 2024. At the MIT Sloan School of Management, for example, school leadership adopted a coordinated, crowdsourced strategy to encourage faculty to get involved and experiment with new technologies. The approach has yielded various projects expected to be scaled for broader use, such as classroom chatbots, student engagement monitors, and institution-wide tools for administrative questions. The community approach also has the significant advantage of many people watching the market and identifying rapidly changing and newly developed tools and opportunities.

"We believe the integration of generative AI into teaching and learning can be a great differentiator for MIT Sloan," said Rodrigo Verdi, deputy dean for degree programs, teaching and learning. "AI is a great enabler and opportunity for levelling up. Given that MIT itself is at the frontier of the development of artificial intelligence, we intend to double down."

Small but mighty in generative AI

At the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) in Berlin, the school slowly allocated AI resources due to its relatively small size, grew the AI-centered project organically, and planned for future necessary resource allocation. With this approach, they developed a unique plug-in system based on a custom generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) that provides separate interfaces for student support and training on academic integrity and faculty support for course development.

"We are genuinely excited about the transformative potential of AI in the academic sphere," said Jörg Rocholl, president of ESMT Berlin. "At ESMT Berlin, our aim is to ensure fair and responsible access to generative AI technologies for our entire community. This will not only enhance our capabilities in research, teaching, and operations but also ensure that we remain at the forefront of technological advancement in business education."

About GMAC

The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) is a mission-driven association of leading graduate business schools worldwide. GMAC provides world-class research, industry conferences, recruiting tools, and assessments for the graduate management education industry as well as resources, events, and services that help guide candidates through their higher education journey. Owned and administered by GMAC, the Graduate Management Admission Test™ (GMAT™) exam is the most widely used graduate business school assessment.

More than 13 million prospective students a year trust GMAC's websites, including mba.com, to learn about MBA and business master's programs, connect with schools around the world, prepare and register for exams and get advice on successfully applying to MBA and business master's programs. BusinessBecause and GMAC Tours are subsidiaries of GMAC, a global organization with offices in China, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

To learn more about our work, please visit www.gmac.com.