From Reading Cases To Living Them: How VR & AI Are Redefining Learning In Business Education

TURNING DISRUPTION INTO IMMERSIVE OPPORTUNITY

Artificial intelligence and immersive technologies are reshaping how business schools teach, research, and prepare future leaders. INSEAD has embraced this transformation through a strategic collaboration with AVRIS Technologies, an EdTech company specializing in AI and extended reality — XR.

Together, they are pioneering a new generation of experiential learning where students no longer read about leadership dilemmas — they live them. By blending INSEAD’s academic rigor with AVRIS’s technological capabilities, the partnership has created INSEAD Immersive Learning, one of the world’s most comprehensive tech-enabled learning libraries.

AVRIS Technologies develops advanced immersive learning experiences that combine VR, AI, and facilitation methodologies. As the technology partner behind INSEAD Immersive Learning, AVRIS enables global institutions to scale experiential education with academic rigor and technological precision.

BEYOND THE CASE METHOD: EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING FOR THE AI AGE

For over a century, the case method has trained executives to analyze complex problems and defend their decisions before peers. Yet, as digital-native learners enter classrooms, attention spans have shortened and engagement with long written cases has declined.

Rather than resist this shift, INSEAD and AVRIS have embraced it to enrich the classroom experience. Through VR driven scenarios and AI-powered interactions, learners step into realistic, charged environments — boardrooms, control-centers, and pitch meetings, where every choice triggers new outcomes and data. 

This methodology replaces passive education with active participation, mirroring real scenarios where information is incomplete, contexts evolve, and leaders must decide amid uncertainty. Research confirms its impact: interactive, experiential methods yield 30% higher knowledge retention than text-based instruction.

In the immersive experience, students shape and influence the situation as it unfolds. AI enables interviewing the protagonists, exploring possible scenarios and responses, and receiving real-time feedback on behavior and decisions. In doing so, AI improves awareness of otherwise unconscious patterns and enhances critical thinking. Through such simulations, students can learn how to negotiate better, learn to navigate difficult conversations, advise CEOs in crisis, and deal with strategic and business challenges in realistic conditions and environments. They can also gain a better understanding of the context — learning to take others’ perspectives, appreciate cultural differences, and adapt their approach across diverse situations.  

FACULTY AS EXPERIENCE ARCHITECTS

AI does not diminish the faculty role in class, it transforms it. Professors become experience architects who design learning journeys blending human facilitation with intelligent systems.

At INSEAD, faculty pioneered a “facila-tech” methodology that uses AI interactions and VR immersive cases to drive facilitated classroom discussions. Faculty guide participants through decision points, surface emotional and ethical dimensions, and connect insights across disciplines. The technology does not replace dialogue — it amplifies it.

During the King’s Business School Deans’ event in London, professors Oguz Acar, Ella Miron-Spektor, and Michael Witt demonstrated this approach live, showing how faculty-led facilitation in an immersive environment can spark deeper engagement, reflection, and collaboration among executives and educators alike. Leveraging the personalized experience of VR, Ella enabled students to step into the shoes of venture capitalists when evaluating pitches, gaining insights not only into investment decision-making but also into their own biases. Human + AI: A New Learning Alliance

The integration of AI in learning environments allows institutions to move from static materials to living curricula. Virtual cases evolve continuously — updating with real-world data, new regulations, or current business events — ensuring that classroom conversations remain relevant to today’s fast-changing world.

AI also expands access and equity. Virtual simulations and asynchronous modules enable global participation, letting students from Singapore to San-Francisco join the same evolving experience, each with personalized feedback loops.

This fusion of human insight and machine intelligence cultivates AI fluency — a critical competency for tomorrow’s leaders who must navigate technology ethically, creatively, and strategically.

ORCHESTRATED GRASSROOTS INNOVATION

INSEAD’s approach to innovation in teaching is described as “orchestrated grassroots.” Faculty are empowered to experiment with immersive and AI tools while maintaining alignment with the school’s academic rigor and values. Working hand-in-hand with INSEAD partners, professors co-design simulations and other cutting-edge experiences. Behind the scenes, AVRIS provides the infrastructure and technology backbone that makes this experimentation scalable, safe, and pedagogically sound.

The result is a continuously evolving ecosystem where research, teaching, and technology converge, transforming disruption into opportunity and redefining the boundaries of what business education can be.

THE NEXT CHAPTER

AI will not end the case method — it will evolve it. The emerging co-creation method allows students, faculty, and intelligent systems to explore complex problems together, generating insight through action, reflection, and feedback.

As one of the professors  summarized at the London event:

“The future of learning is not about replacing humans with technology. It’s about using technology to make learning more human — more engaging, reflective, and connected to the world we live in.”

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Ella Miron-Spektor is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and the Academic Director of INSEAD’s PhD program. Benjamin Stevenin is special adviser to Poets&Quants and former Director of Business School Solutions and Partnerships at Times Higher Education. Alon Epstein is co-founder of AVRIS Technologies and head of immersive content and pedagogical development at INSEAD Immersive Learning. This article was written following the recent Deans’ event at King’s Business School, hosted in partnership with INSEAD and powered by AVRIS Technologies.

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