This New AI Business Degree Teaches What Most Programs Skip

Most business schools are rushing to teach artificial intelligence. At Boston University Questrom School of Business, they’re trying something else: telling students to slow down.

That’s the thinking behind a new Online Master of Science in AI in Business, led by Paul Carlile, the architect of Questrom’s Online MBA. Instead of jumping straight into tools and techniques, the program starts somewhere more basic – figuring out what problem you’re actually trying to solve.

“A lot of programs push people quickly toward a dashboard, a model, or a GenAI tool,” Carlile tells Poets&Quants. “We teach them to start somewhere more durable – with the business problem itself.”

START WITH THE PROBLEM – NOT THE TOOL

Carlile walks through a simple example: a company is losing customers. In many programs, that would lead straight to building a model or pulling data. At Questrom, students are taught to slow down first. 

They start by defining the problem, then diagnosing it using a simple but structured set of questions: what is happening, how it is happening, why it matters, where it is occurring, who is involved, and when it tends to arise.

Only after that do they decide what kind of analysis they need.

“Descriptive if the question is what happened, diagnostic if it’s how and why, predictive if it’s what is likely to happen next,” Carlile says. “Only then do they choose the right method and tool.”

The point is not to avoid technology. It’s to put it in the right place.

“That is what I mean by an evergreen navigational journey,” he says. “The tools will change, but the leader’s path from problem to diagnosis to capability to tool to action remains durable.”

WHEN A PROBLEM STOPS BEING A FIX

The degree, which is currently accepting applications, is organized into four modules, but the bigger idea is learning when a problem changes shape.

Carlile points to customer service as an example.

At first, the issue might be slow response times or inefficient workflows – something that can be improved with better processes or automation.

But over time, the company may realize customers don’t want traditional service at all. They want proactive solutions, self-service, and a completely different relationship with the firm.

At that point, the problem has changed.

“You are no longer just improving the existing workflow,” Carlile says. “You are rethinking the work system itself.”

That shift – from improvement to innovation – is where many organizations struggle. The program is designed to help students recognize when they’ve crossed that line.

“We want students to know when they are still inside a small-loop improvement problem,” he says, “and when the problem has escalated into something that requires a much bigger rethink.”

LEARNING TOGETHER BEFORE GOING SOLO

Another difference is how the program is taught. The structure borrows heavily from Questrom’s Online MBA, also designed by Carlile, which has grown into one of the school’s most visible programs with hundreds of students and unusually strong retention.

Instead of sending students off to work on their own problems right away, everyone starts in the same place. The entire cohort works through a shared case – using the same language and the same method.

That might mean analyzing the same churn problem or redesigning the same workflow together in a live session.

The goal is to build a common foundation.

“The shared problem creates common contrasts, common failure modes, and common standards,” Carlile says. “That’s essential if you want learning to be collectively developmental and not just personalized.”

Only after that do students apply the same approach to their own organizations through what the program calls “playbook” assignments.

“They don’t disappear into their own use case on day one,” he says. “They build that shared understanding first.”

TECHNICAL, BUT STILL BUSINESS-FIRST

The program sits within a broader group of AI-related degrees at Boston University, including programs in computer science, software engineering, and data science.

But Questrom’s version is intentionally different.

While the school works with BU’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences to help develop the technical side of the curriculum, the courses themselves are taught by Questrom faculty.

“Our technical faculty teach computer science, operations, data science, and generative AI,” Carlile says, “but they do so from a business-first approach.”

The goal is not to turn managers into engineers, but to help them make better decisions.

“The business person is never going to be as up-to-date as the technologist,” he says. “So how do you give them the ability to frame the problem and choose the right approach?”

A PROGRAM BUILT FOR PEOPLE ALREADY DOING THE JOB

The first cohort is set to begin this fall, with a target of about 100 students. As of late April, the school had admitted more than 90 candidates from a pool of more than 120 applicants, with applications open into early summer.

The typical student looks a lot like the audience for Questrom’s Online MBA: mid-career professionals already responsible for improving performance, scaling change, and making decisions at work.

“They don’t need to learn AI to get their first job,” Carlile says. “They need to learn how to make it work in real organizations.”

A DIFFERENT KIND OF LESSON

Spend enough time with Carlile and the conversation can get dense quickly – frameworks, systems, learning theory.

But underneath it, the idea is straightforward.

Business schools have spent years teaching people what to know. This program is trying to teach them how to work through problems that don’t come with clear answers.

It starts with slowing down.

“This is about helping people navigate,” Carlile says. “Not just giving them another tool.”

Learn more about Questrom’s Online Master of Science in AI in Business here.

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