Harnessing AI in Higher Education: Shaping Future Business Leaders Executive Summary 

By Luca Collina

The article explores how AI is revolutionising higher education (HE) and impacting the growth of business skills. The use of AI in teaching methods at universities is on the rise. With AI, schools can provide tailor-made courses for students hence improving the quality of content delivery and efficiency in time management. These changes are particularly important for business schools because they can prepare students who can handle advanced AI systems.  

However, many business schools have not yet fully embraced comprehensive AI programs; instead, they lean towards offering analytics courses or treating AI as an ancillary subject. This situation can create both challenges and opportunities for universities where there is always a mismatch between these fast-growing needs from industry players and what is taught.  

The idea here is that it becomes necessary for students to develop a blend of both technical AI  know-how and strategic business acumen as they prepare to enter a world where machines would be taking over, making tasks processes, and creating new roles. It is believed that integration of AI into education together with business training will help organizations meet future job market requirements as well boosting their operations capabilities on the use of AI technology. 

Introduction 

The University of Aberdeen has been ranked 2nd in Scotland for overall student satisfaction and 15th in the UK for positive responses, in the National Student Survey (NSS)¹. I have good  memories of the UNI when I was attending evening courses for PM. Thus, When I read this article, I thought that they could be taken as a good example of how to treat students as Clients in  education. 

I was curious to check what evaluation elements were used to get these rankings. Among the others, what I found compelling to the scope of this reflection are: 

• Teaching  
• Academic support 
• Learning resources 

Focus point 

Students (as Clients of HE) are the focus point as it happens within the business. In addition to being educated, the students should also consider the opportunity to raise the bar of their so far personal experience using AI, with enhanced and ready-to-use skills in a working environment. 

The first question that came to my mind was: “How things can change if we adopt AI in  Education, especially related to the points above?” This question is beyond the Aberdeen University of course, but that achievement is the starting point for a reflection. 

A second question was “How do Business schools fulfill the new skills portfolio required for  young adults and experienced ones?” 

Let’s start with the analysis of how the elements used for the evaluation should integrate AI to challenge the educational environment. 

Vriti Saraf, CEO and founder of K20 Educators, on the impact of AI on education: 

How would adopting AI in education make a difference?

Quality of Teaching 

The extent to which students are satisfied with their education is significantly pegged on how well instructors do their work, the clarity in their presentation as well as how free learners are within the study schedule. There are several ways through which AI could change this aspect of education. Since AI helps enhance the teaching process leading to better outcomes in learning, it is redefining the concept of instructional programs.²

Martin Fleming, IBM’s Chief Economist:

Personalised Learning 

To personalise learning experiences, AI must be able to adapt itself according to individual  paces and necessities. For instance, AI-based systems can identify which areas students have strengths or weaknesses thus providing them with tailor-made materials that facilitate a better understanding of difficult subjects. It helps improve engagement thereby better comprehension hence an overall increase in teaching quality by so doing.³ 

Smart Tutoring Systems 

AI-based digital tutors enable personalised instruction whereby every learner receives his/her tutor directly from the computer screen. These tutors work by offering instant responses to questions as well as taking students through problem-solving procedures. This is helpful  because it enables students to get a better grasp on difficult concepts and thus perform well academically as if they were interacting with their human tutors, but they don’t completely substitute them.⁴

Automated Grading and Feedback 

AI can be used to automatically assess student work enabling immediate feedback from  teachers. This is not only an effective time-saving mechanism for those educators who have a limited amount of time set aside for providing feedback because they only deal with those aspects where the student needs help but this also enables students to know where they went wrong to correct it in time.⁵ 

Academic support – Learning Resources 

Effective teaching is dependent on the availability and sufficiency of learning resources. This is where AI comes in to revolutionize learning resources as well: 

AI helps businesses and educational institutions create more engaging, more effective educational resources.⁶ 

Academic Support 

Academic support services including guidance counseling or extra support towards studies, are essential if you want students to pass through the educational process without getting lost  along the way. AI offers enormous potential when revolutionising these services. AI has made academic support services more accessible and adaptable than ever before.⁷ 

Virtual Advisors 

AI-driven virtual advisors can help in the selection of courses, scheduling, and career advisement for students. Availability 24/7 makes them accessible without requiring physical  meetings because students always get fresh information anytime they need this thus making  them enjoy their studies better. (Reduction during summer melt by 21% in Georgia State University’s chatbot, Pounce).⁸ 

Adaptive Learning Platforms 

Adaptive learning platforms use AI to create dynamic and interactive learning experiences⁹ that can adjust themselves in real time to meet students’ needs keeping students engaged by changing their content automatically based on their progress also helping them to make better academic decisions. 

Digital Libraries and Resources 

This ensures easy access to relevant information thus enhancing the expansion of knowledge by making it available for students regardless of how they prefer to learn or study with improving search functions, and personalised recommendations based on a single student. Digital libraries can automate research processes, and customised services and improve students’ experience.¹⁰ 

Enhanced Collaboration Tools 

Artificial intelligence-powered tools increase the effectiveness and efficiency of group work  among students such as Improved Collaboration and Learning Outcomes, Engagement and Productivity.¹¹ 

I want to remind you that the positive benefits and the already achieved AI results do not leave out the evaluation of risks balanced with opportunities/benefits. Here we have the “The usual suspects” like Data privacy, Equity and access, and Risks related to technical over-reliance. 

It is safe to say that AI will significantly transform how education and learning happen in the education industry from its level of personalisation. Intelligent tutoring systems that respond to individual needs provide students with customised feedback and resources. Quite challenging to  transfer the original methodology approaches into AI use. However early adopters have shown that results and outcomes are very positive. 

Moreover, AI has a crucial part to play in ensuring lifelong learning. 

Soumitra Dutta, Dean of Oxford University’s Saïd Business School: 

Some examples of Business training adoptions of AI. 

• Maritime AI /VR training: managers improve situational awareness and decision making skills 
• IBM survey with Business leaders: Gen AI helps to spot business opportunities and make data-based decision-making.
• Surgeons: they receive through AI standardised models feedback to improve  techniques and increase accurate assessments to further enhance their skills. 

How can Business schools fulfill the new skills portfolio required for  young and experienced adults? 

There is another point that, I didn’t find still deepened in research. Higher Education- HE: what is the next step to effectively prepare the future young generations and the more experienced ones to adopt and contribute to the implementation of AI Systems? And manage the future innovation technologies without hype? 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) incorporation into the curriculum of Business schools has gained significant interest over the last few years even if it is still at the beginning. 

This move results from the increase of AI Competencies in businesses worldwide whose  solutions lie in the academic realm which seeks to arm its students with appropriate skills fit for such an environment.  

The simple reason sits on the fact that the more money organizations spend on AI projects the harder it is to find individuals with the appropriate AI skills. These companies are also failing to find people capable of getting AI expertise to use in an organizational context. They need  individuals with AI business and organizational credentials who can utilize these competencies within the organization. 

However, AI programs are not yet fully offered by business schools. They are redesigning IS (information system) degrees toward analytics orientation, some are introducing linkages in business analytics under the present programs.¹² 

If we map skills related to AI and business, we can create a skills portfolio. Various AI skills must  be learned in business, ranging from basic to advanced AI. Key among them is data analysis, strategic management of AI, machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP) ethics, and AI in business implementations. 

This portfolio of competencies should aim at enabling students in business studies to have an all-round view of artificial intelligence technologies interacting with business aspects: an approach that involves both savvy technical and strategic aspects This will help students to understand how to use AI effectively in their working environments. It also enables them to make  sound decisions on AI applications especially due to continuous technical development and the hype that surrounds this new explosion of innovations. 

Below there are some institutions as examples, that manage a combination of AI and business:

Conclusions  

• Students’ satisfaction is paramount (Education’s customers); AI applications could increase their satisfaction and improve their learning with valuable outcomes related to gaining new skills.
• The next steps are related to focusing on current and future demand from companies for tech savvy and business skills at organizational and strategic levels. 
• It is expected that business schools play a fundamental role for the managers and executives of the future in the AI realm selecting the right combination of learning outcomes and related skills. 

Jeff Bezos:

About the Author

Luca Collina is a transformational and AI Business consultant at TRANSFORAGE TCA LTD. York St John University awarded him the Business – Postgraduate Programme Prize and CMCE (Centre for Management Consulting Excellence-UK) for his paper in Technology and Consulting Research Prize. Author/External Collaborator of CMCE.

References

1. https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/23346/
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5. Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Frankiewicz, B. (2023). How AI Is Transforming Education and Training. Harvard Business Review.
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