In The Age Of AI, IESE Bets The MBA's Future On Judgment

IESE Business School, ranked in the global top five by the Financial Times for four consecutive years, will launch its redesigned MBA in September 2026

‘WE ARE QUIETLY DISMANTLING THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR JUDGMENT DEVELOPMENT’

The portfolio idea wasn’t hatched in the faculty lounge alone. When Kaganer brought it to student groups, including the school’s technology club, he found they had been developing the same concept independently.

For all the discussion of AI capabilities, the conversation at IESE keeps returning to one word: judgment.

As AI compresses execution and automates more knowledge work, school leaders argue, the value of deciding what should be done – and evaluating whether outcomes are any good – only increases.

“Everybody says judgment,” Kaganer says. “Nobody defines it.”

WHAT JUDGMENT ACTUALLY MEANS

His definition is blunt.

“Once you decide what it is you want to work on, AI can make it happen very quickly,” he says. “The actual doing is compressed by AI. But deciding what needs doing and deciding what good looks like – that’s what judgment is about.”

The problem, he argues, is that organizations may be simultaneously increasing the need for judgment while eroding the systems that once built it – companies pulling back on junior hiring, eliminating the apprenticeship-style work that used to train young managers, and nudging people toward AI in ways that gradually weaken their own thinking.

“We keep saying judgment will become more important, but at the same time we are quietly dismantling the infrastructure for judgment development,” he says.

DOUBLING DOWN ON THE CASE METHOD

That tension is why IESE is doubling down on the case method even as it overhauls the program for the AI era.

“We still believe the case method is super helpful to develop judgment because it’s experiential learning,” Badia says. “You are in the head of the decision-maker.”

AI will now become part of that classroom dynamic. Cases may include AI-generated analyses that students must critique and interrogate. Faculty are expected to push beyond whatever a first-pass AI response might offer.

“People who prepare only with first-level AI tools – that’s not enough,” Badia says. “Because you push back. You push harder.”

IESE’s Evgeny Káganer: “An individual contributor may not manage a large team. But deciding what to do, structuring work, assigning responsibilities, evaluating outputs – these are all management activities. They’re becoming more important, not less”

BANNING AI IS A NON-STARTER

Evgeny Káganer says banning AI outright is a non-starter.

“You can introduce policies and tell students what they can and cannot do,” he says. “But you cannot enforce those policies.”

Instead, IESE focuses on helping students understand how human learning actually works – and how to use AI without quietly hollowing out their own capabilities in the process.

The redesign also reflects a deeper anxiety running through management education: what happens to the MBA if organizational structures fundamentally change?

FEWER MANAGERS, HIGHER STAKES

Káganer thinks AI will likely reduce the number of people carrying formal management titles, particularly in industries where individual contributors become dramatically more productive – software startups being the leading example.

“If you look at what’s happening in the Valley, the ability to scale to meaningful revenue with very few employees is extraordinary,” he says.

But he argues that management competencies may actually grow more important even as traditional hierarchies shrink.

“An individual contributor may not manage a large team,” he says. “But deciding what to do, structuring work, assigning responsibilities, evaluating outputs – these are all management activities. They’re becoming more important, not less.”

THE HUMAN QUESTIONS AT THE CENTER

Badia sees the same paradox – and frames it in terms of what IESE calls its humanistic approach to leadership.

“We may need fewer managers,” he says. “But the managers we do need will have to be very good at judgment, prudence, and understanding human nature.”

He points to the psychological disruption facing workers whose professions AI is now rewriting.

“How do you reskill people when you are changing not just their job, but their professional identity?” he asks. “I have been doing this for 20 years. And all of a sudden …”

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