The use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) in everyday life is stretching beyond just the use of generative tools such as ChatGPT. In fact, 49% of workers could have half or more of their tasks exposed to large language models like ChatGPT, according to a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania.
While one might assume that A.I. will make its big takeover in the tech industry first, this emerging technology is being introduced in a variety of occupations that have “repetitive, repeatable, predictable jobs,” as Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera’s CEO, put it in a recent interview with Fortune.
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“If you don’t know how to use A.I. for your job, you’re in trouble,” he said. “All employers want you to be able to use this if you’ve graduated.”
As more occupations will require workers who are experienced in working with A.I., top business schools have started implementing courses to help MBA students prepare for changes in the workforce. In fact, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, which Fortune ranks as having the No. 9 full-time MBA program in the U.S., recently launched an executive education course about generative A.I.
“MBAs are the executives of the future and today they are laying the foundation—in how they think and act—for creating that future,” Hal Gregersen, a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan, tells Fortune. “While this course is targeted to senior leaders, it is equally relevant to MBAs at this stage of their management journey.”
Fortune has compiled a list of five top MBA programs that offer A.I.-focused courses. Note that not all schools were contacted for this article, therefore the list is not exhaustive.
1. MIT Sloan
MIT Sloan last month announced the launch of an executive education course, Embracing the Unexpected: Creative Transformation Amid Rapid Change, which focuses on developing skill sets necessary to adapt in an A.I.-driven world.
“Learning how to embrace the unexpected effectively—including the duality and paradox that accompany transformation—is much more than a single course,” Gregersen says. “It’s a lifelong quest that paves a powerful path for creating and recreating meaningful value in companies and communities around the world.”
The course is taught by Gregerson and Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull, and also focuses on how to build management strategies in “turbulent times” and managing humans and technology amid digital transformation.
MIT Sloan also offers two A.I.-focused courses as part of its MBA program: The Law of A.I., Big Data, and Social Media and A.I. for Impact: Solving Societal Scale Problems.
2. New York University Stern School of Business
New York University Stern School of Business, which Fortune ranks as having the No. 7 full-time MBA program in the U.S., offers several opportunities for its business school students to learn about A.I.
MBA students who choose to specialize in business analytics can take Introduction to AI & Its Applications in Business, which provides students an overview of A.I. developments, fundamental A.I. concepts, and its practical business applications. The school also offers two A.I.-focused elective courses for executive MBA students: Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and the Platform Revolution: Global Perspectives and Analytics and Machine Learning.
NYU Stern students who participate in the one-year Andre Koo Tech MBA program are required to complete the Stern Solutions Summer NYC Immersion course, which incorporates A.I. into the classroom and guest speakers from the A.I. Now Institute.
3. University of Chicago Booth School of Business
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, which Fortune ranks as having the No. 2 full-time MBA program, will start offering a course in fall 2023 called Generative Thinking, which will cover potential use cases for A.I. to “automate content creation, optimize processes, and personalize experiences,” according to Chicago Booth.
The course will be taught by Sanjog Misra, whose research focuses on the use of machine learning, deep learning and structural econometric methods.
4. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University
Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, the No. 3-ranked full-time MBA program by Fortune, offers several A.I.-focused courses and also has even developed an MBAi (MBA in artificial intelligence) program in partnership with Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering.
A.I.-focused MBA courses include Leading A.I.: Organizations, Ethics and Society, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work, Customer Analytics and A.I., and Human and Machine Intelligence. These courses cover a range of topics such as the importance of A.I. usage in business, workplace disruptions caused by A.I., and how marketing can change due to A.I.
The MBAi program was developed in 2021 and is a 15-month program designed for business leaders who want to operate with A.I.-driven technology. The program uses both business strategy and analytic technologies to help students learn A.I. skills. It includes the MBA core curriculum (what students would typically take in an MBA program), but also has a technical core in which students learn programming languages and the agile process used in product management.
Graduates of the MBAi program have gone on to work as a health care A.I. consultant for Deloitte, senior product manager at Amazon, generative A.I. consultant at McKinsey & Co., and technical product manager at John Deere.
5. Columbia Business School
Columbia Business School, which Fortune ranks as having the No. 6 full-time MBA program, offers several courses that are focused on A.I. or include A.I. in the curriculum.
The courses include: Virtual Reality & Artificial Intelligence, Technology Breakthroughs, Analytics Advantage, Analytics in Action, Python for MBAs, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, and Foundations of A.I. for Business.
Check out all of Fortune’s rankings of degree programs, and learn more about specific career paths.
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