Will AI Kill Online MBA Programs?

AI can now deliver much of what online MBA programs were originally created to provide: content, knowledge, and instruction once accessible only through university coursework. That development raises concerns about what real value those programs can offer now that AI can’t easily replicate. Which of their distinguishing features should universities identify and enhance so they remain relevant and flourish in the new environment?

I suggest some of the most prominent ones are: 1) personalized guidance from experts, 2) engagement in a broad and diversified learning community, 3) direct and continuing access to cutting-edge knowledge, 4) an interdisciplinary and hands-on approach, and 5) the opportunity to strengthen one’s cognitive muscles. And to ensure online MBA programs continue to deliver value today and going forward, all of us who offer such programs should be asking ourselves five related and important questions.

#1. How can our school give MBA students the best personalized expertise and guidance? 

Contrary to common misconceptions, the most successful online MBA programs provide significant live interaction with faculty members and other experts. At Kelley, for instance, our online MBA students have as many high-touch experiences as high-tech ones. Each week, students attend live virtual classes and office hours with highly regarded, full-time faculty members. These experts help them skillfully separate the wheat from the chaff in what AI suggests about leadership in a rapidly evolving business world. 

In addition, our professional advancement office, specifically tailored to online MBA students, helps each student create a customized long-term career strategy by partnering them with seasoned career coaches— executives, consultants, and entrepreneurs who average 25 years of experience across diverse industries and roles. Professionals in our mental wellness office advise students on more personal concerns, from managing their time, to securing their financial well-being, to navigating their work/coursework balance. These are just a few examples of the distinct personalized opportunities online business programs provide and should accentuate. 

#2. How can we provide students access to the widest array of experiences and connections they can’t get through technology alone? 

Strong online MBA programs connect students personally with broad networks of employers who provide multiple contacts, perspectives, and ways of framing and tackling business challenges. Our students, for instance, spend significant time learning from alumni managers and others at companies including DHL, Spotify, Guinness, Meta, and Salesforce during immersive site visits around the world. They also participate in hands-on consulting engagements with partners like USA Cycling and at global conferences like CES and SXSW.

In addition, leading online MBA programs often only admit students if they bring significant real-world experience and industry knowledge. For example, 99 percent of our online MBA students are employed and have already, on average, worked for a decade before they enroll. Thus, they each are surrounded by hundreds of classmates who are experts in a diversity of fields, and class discussions generate a vast range of peer-to-peer insights alongside faculty-led ones.

Students can further tap into such expertise through organizations like our student leadership association, which sponsors subgroups focused on topics like consulting, entrepreneurship, nonprofit leadership, and AI. We encourage our students to participate in and lead events for these different groups, where they can not only develop their knowledge and build professional networks but also develop long-term friendships.

Our goal is to keep identifying ways to make the most of this rich ecosystem of learning both within and beyond formal classes. In other words, a key driver of online MBA programs’ continuing success will be the extent to which the online program can deliver a student experience that “feels” like an in-person experience.

#3. How can we stay ahead of the curve in offering what current and future business leaders need? 

Whether teaching online or in person, business faculty members must remain at the forefront of both the fields they’ve spent decades working in and researching the emerging technologies that are changing the best practices in those fields. At Kelley, we’re committed to teaching our students not only core values like systems thinking, teamwork, personal integrity, ethical behavior, leadership, and responsible governance of organizations, but also the ability to make the most effective and efficient use of AI and other technologies. 

Even with so much uncertainty swirling in the air, this much is clear: AI does not respect org charts and will touch every function of any organization, including operations, communications, finance, strategy, and the daily work of people at every level. To meet this challenge, we’ve created a Virtual Advanced Business Technologies Department (VABT), in which 115 faculty members from across every discipline come together regularly to share best practices, push each other’s thinking, and determine how our online MBA program can best embed AI meaningfully across learning objectives.

Moreover, Pat Hopkins, Kelley’s dean, meets regularly with an AI Roundtable of a dozen CEOs, vice presidents, and industry leaders who guide us on the skills that our graduates most need to succeed today and in the future. They also advise us on how best to integrate AI across our curriculum.

The online MBA programs pulling ahead right now are the ones connected to the business leaders actually grappling with AI’s disruptions in real time across operations, workforce issues, and strategic planning. They are also the schools that no longer treat AI as a technology project owned by one team but as an organizational transformation owned by everyone.

#4. How can we create the most relevant real-world learning experiences? 

Students enroll in online MBA programs to hone their knowledge and skills in specific fields. But, as I’ve noted, business today can’t be conducted effectively in disciplinary silos limited to marketing, finance, operations, accounting, and strategy. The challenges that most companies face cut across all functions and demand the skill of leading teams—and increasingly, AI agents—with wide-ranging expertise toward a common solution. This requires an experiential approach to education that DIY learning through AI can’t replicate.

For example, the curricular capstone of our online MBA is a multiweek, case-driven experience in which students work with former deans, senior research faculty, and leaders of multimillion-dollar organizations to integrate knowledge and apply it to the kinds of cross-functional business challenges they’ll inevitably confront throughout their careers. The class requires students to engage with a different scenario each week in which they work together to win resources and support for a new venture or to evaluate expansion opportunities for a growing business.

To thrive going forward, online MBA programs like ours must focus on creating more such moments where different business disciplines aren’t taught in isolation but integrated around real-world decisions.

5. How can we help online students build cognitive muscles that enable them to perform strongly throughout their career? 

All MBA students must not only learn the content and best practices of their disciplines but also develop critical thinking, judgment, and emotional intelligence. Yet many are using AI and other emerging technologies as crutches, which threatens to atrophy their intellectual, analytical, social, and ethical skills. 

Thus, we offer online classes in which students engage with questions via Socratic dialogue in real time, leaving no space to rely on AI. Such course experiences require students to process content quickly and critically while communicating with clarity and persuasion. In the age of AI, these remain among the most valuable human skills, ones that distinguish humans from machines and are hallmarks of the leadership needed in a C-suite.

The challenge, of course, is training students to use AI as an amplifier rather than a shortcut. We must teach them to develop their own capacities while harnessing these tools effectively in real-world situations. Just as using a trainer, rather than simply exercising alone, pushes one’s discipline, endurance, strength, and muscle memory, completing an effective online MBA program pushes one’s ability to navigate transitions between AI-enhanced work and the contributions only human leaders can (and should) make. Our leading GenAI 101 course offers students the fundamental skills and guardrails needed for precisely this.

These five distinct features are not exhaustive. They are simply where Kelley has started. As deans, faculty, and program leaders, we must keep zeroing in on what distinguishes a rigorous online MBA education from anything large language models might replicate. AI or other emerging technologies will not kill online graduate MBA programs. If used well and as a complement to our work, they can, in fact, help us augment what we do for our students in profound ways. We will only thrive and succeed if we keep evolving with these technologies and asking ourselves these fundamental questions.

---

Josh Perry is Executive Vice Dean, the Conrad Prebys Professor, and Professor of Business Law & Ethics at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business in Bloomington.

© Copyright 2026 Poets & Quants. All rights reserved. This article may not be republished, rewritten or otherwise distributed without written permission. To reprint or license this article or any content from Poets & Quants, please submit your request HERE.