Student Voices: Business Schools Don’t Need More AI Classes. They Need An AI-Native Curriculum

“Like computers and the Internet before it, AI is something that will be waiting for MBA graduates as a staple at nearly any job they choose to do after graduation,” writes Booth MBA student Kuan-lin F. Liu

Objectively, by traditional MBA metrics, this is not the best time to be in business school. Headlines from major outlets remind us on a near-daily basis that the current job market is reminiscent of the aftermath of the Great Recession and that even MBA graduates from top programs are struggling to get hired. Meanwhile, as if to add insult to injury, CEOs in and outside of tech are warning of future mass job displacement driven by AI. 

As a Booth MBA student who matriculated in the fall of 2024, I started business school at a transformative time – for AI, that is. Industry leaders and commentators have described 2025 as a “pivotal year” for artificial intelligence, when AI shifted from a novel tool to a core technology reshaping entire industries.

Even though AI may be what dampens the job prospects for my class of MBA graduates, we may have unknowingly found ourselves in business school at the best time in history to learn how to work with this new technology.

Since resuming my status as a student, I have been eligible for more free trials of some of the best AI tools than I have the time to try. ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini have all had their own versions of student promotions and discounts. At the same time, schools have been cementing individual partnerships with AI companies to provide even more tools and capabilities for their students. 

The availability and accessibility of AI tools have fundamentally shifted how we learn in the classroom. I have witnessed classmates ask AI to explain a concept to them in class when they were having trouble keeping up. A friend told me she uploads class slides and notes to Gamma, the AI presentation maker, and it generates a study guide deck for her. Personally, I use ChatGPT to prepare for class debates by discussing and defending my point of view with it before class. 

Of course, this is not every Boothie’s experience or that of the hundreds of thousands of MBA students across the world. Each class has its own AI policy, not to mention its own laptop in class policy. Some of my classes embrace AI with open arms, requiring us to use AI coding tools like Claude Code or Codex for final projects or run custom GPTs for synthetic user testing. The result is students picking up AI skills that they then use in other classes to build a mock landing page for marketing or a minimum viable product for entrepreneurship. 

Other classes, however, are cracking down on AI usage, relying on dubious AI detectors to catch cheating. In the process, some students might choose to avoid AI altogether because it is not worth the hassle. What ends up happening is a widening gap in AI fluency and skills even within a business school, at a time when more MBA programs are launching AI concentrations and certificates. 

In 2025, top MBA programs like Wharton, Booth, Haas, Ross, and Stern all launched or announced their AI-focused majors. On the surface, this appears to be a rapid response to student demands echoing a changing workforce that is increasingly looking for AI skills. However, if these AI classes are being offered as electives, not core curriculum requirements, it is unclear who benefits. Students who are already interested in AI and likely have a base level of AI literacy will opt in and deepen their skills. Meanwhile, those who are more hesitant can continue to avoid AI and still graduate with the same degree.

For a degree that is supposed to prepare students for the workforce and produce its future leaders, this is not the answer. By providing AI as a separate, optional track, business schools are effectively placing AI in a silo, a place where it does not belong. Like computers and the Internet before it, AI is something that will be waiting for MBA graduates as a staple at nearly any job they choose to do after graduation. To treat it as an add-on rather than infusing it into the required curriculum is a huge disservice to the MBA students paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition. 

This is where business schools can look to American University’s Kogod School of Business for an example. In fall of 2024, Kogod “embedded AI into every course”  because it recognized that AI will be a part of every job function and every industry. 

Though I am not privy to what this actually looks like in practice, I can imagine a near future where management courses focus on both managing humans and AI agents, marketing courses that integrate AI workflows, and so much more. 

With less than three months before I receive my MBA diploma, I cannot help but ask myself whether an MBA was worth it. And I know many of my peers are asking the same question. For me, it was. I would never have learned and experimented so much with AI without these two years out of the workforce.

Yet, to defend its value to the hopefully hundreds of thousands of future MBA students, business schools need to change. They need to fundamentally overhaul their curriculum to be AI-native and better reflect the real business world we are graduating into. 

Kuan-lin F. Liu is a second-year MBA student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Prior to Booth, he led content marketing at an AI MarTech company. His current focus is at the intersection of AI, strategy, and storytelling. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

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