We are in a unique moment for business education: just around the corner, the first native generation in artificial intelligence (AI) in history appears. But we are also in a “situation where human intelligence is under attack.” The echo belongs to Matthew Connelly, vice dean of AI at Columbia University (New York). Bigger words. «The battle between robots and brains has already begun, and educators can see its end in sight. Young people are becoming so dependent on AI that they are losing the ability to think for themselves. And rather than opposing it, academic administrators are facilitating the hostile takeover of higher education.» Connelly is a reference. A Columbia student, he says, Roy Lee, boasted of having developed an AI tool with which to cheat in online interviews for the technology sector. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz expressed admiration for the “bold” approach and helped him raise $15 million to launch Lee’s company, who stated, without mincing his words, that he wants to help users “cheat at everything.” This is part of the attack. It doesn’t stop. The ubiquitous ChatGPT developed a technology that detected, with 99.9% accuracy, jobs generated with its tools. It added a kind of watermark. The initiative was shot down by its executives because it could lead some users to switch to a competing product. Is it a war or not? And technology companies increasingly want to conquer more educational terrain. OpenAI aims for an army of bots to become part of the core infrastructure of education. That is, controlling academic advising from access decisions to the center. And universities are eagerly linking up with AI companies, despite decades of evidence of the need to pre-test educational technology, which often fails to achieve measurable improvements in student learning. The German Frankfurt School of Finance & Management signed a collaboration with OpenAI in 2025 to integrate ChatGPT Edu into its teaching, administration and research. “With the arrival of new generations, […] «Practical learning and interaction with others will be consolidated as key teaching methods,» explains Christian Landau, vice president of the German center’s Undergraduate Program, by email. And he adds a new derivative: «The network of contacts of a school and the opportunities it offers to students during their training, and later as alumni, will be a key differentiating factor.» Now there is a war between those who have an «agenda» and those who do not. Similarly, the French business school NEOMA sealed an alliance with Mistral, a company pioneering gala in AI, which provides each new student with a license for Le Chat LLM – an alternative to ChatGPT – which they can use to analyze course content, simulate learning experiences and plan workloads. Teachers could, in their offices, use Le Chat in order to generate teaching materials such as study plans. gorodenkoff (GETTY IMAGES)
It goes with the times
An era of uncertainty where impunity reaches even the elite of the classrooms. Few deny friction anymore. Graham Hastie is associate dean of education at London Business School (LBS), one of the world’s top business schools. “The value of a top-level center like ours must go beyond transmitting information,” he observes. “It lies in fostering creativity, innovation and critical thinking; in developing the ability to ask the right questions, not just the answers, and cultivating the interpersonal, ethical and leadership skills that are essential for success in a world shaped by AI,” he advances. One might wonder what the LBS means by success. For now, the conversation turns to other horizons. “We are focused on helping our students develop uniquely human capabilities that AI cannot replace: empathy, resilience, judgment, and the ability to inspire and lead diverse teams.” You have heard it a thousand times: leaders who generate value for society and companies. But there is something that reads like one of the many business management manuals on sale. “AI-based recruiting processes mean that trust and credibility are a crucial factor,” admits Hastie. No Roy Lee-style trickery. And they will change, to protect themselves, the syllabi and the way of teaching. «The content will no longer be the center and the skills will become so: critical thinking, analysis, decision-making in uncertain environments and understanding of AI as a tool. This implies teaching oriented towards real problems, where the humanistic gains weight over the purely technical,» ventures David López, dean of the MBA at Esade.
More information
Back to the grammar of war, the war is already planned and its strategists are clear about the movements. In a recent conversation with the Financial Times newspaper, Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, predicted that in 18 months law and MBA graduates – and many other less qualified professionals – will be out of work. The transformation will be more drastic – the executive admitted – than the one experienced before the pandemic. Semantics gives other options. Instead of war it can be called fracture. How to get around it? “The objective is to train professionals capable of orchestrating work in hybrid teams of humans and AI, generating impact in the new world of work,” comments Lee Newman, dean of IE Business School at IE University, also by email. The teacher still trusts the human being. In the year 600 BC, the philosopher Anaximenes asked his teacher Pythagoras: “Why should I search for the secrets of the stars if I have death and slavery continually before my eyes?” Asking ourselves questions like these reminds us of the species we are and the way to advance as a global society. “Our approach combines technological innovation with humanism,” says Newman. “We have integrated OpenAI tools from the beginning into our educational ecosystem and are focused on how AI can support teachers in personalizing teaching.” A challenge, just like Anaximenes’ question. Work cited by Columbia University suggests that students who use AI do not read with the same attention when researching and write with less precision and originality. They ignore what they are missing; Reading carefully, thinking critically, and writing logically are the skills needed to harness the true potential of AI. However, the future depends a lot on who you ask. “It is possible that teachers can be replaced for certain tasks, such as consultation hours, some virtual programs and the preparation and correction of exams,” predicts Mauro Guillén, vice dean at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (USA). The center has incorporated AI courses into MBA programs. If we pay attention to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a firm specialized in the sector, 46% of business schools consider that AI is essential in an ideal study plan.
More information
Traveling to Belgium, where there are countless current institutions that affect Ancient Europe, the student can stop at the Vlerick Business School; It occupies a medium position in the rankings, but enters the prestige club. They use AI to jump (that’s the verb they use). “From creating your own company to accessing a new international position,” summarizes Steve Muylle, associate dean of digital learning at the center. Hop. In such a technological planet, verbs have rarely mattered so much. The attack is as evident as if the front page of all the newspapers were set on fire at the same time. Change the way you put out the fire. “The value no longer lies in accessing knowledge, but in interpreting it, questioning it and using it judiciously,” emphasizes Carlos López, dean of Esic Business & Marketing School in Madrid. “The differential value of a school cannot be competing with AI, but rather teaching how to think with it,” he clarifies. Avoid confusing “assistance with substitution.” 
Ekaterina Goncharova ( GETTY IMAGES )These cutting-edge technologies throw up the challenge of the red line. Where to place the limit. In the course AI Essentials for Business –translated as Basic Artificial Intelligence for Business–, taught online by Harvard University, one of the claims to attract students is that mastery of those two letters reports about 20,000 dollars (17,300 euros) extra to an average salary. Not too long ago, a Madrid business school proposed billboards with the slogan in English: Business and only business. “AI is a technical skill and they can be native speakers, but understanding it in depth requires learning and teachers are not very enthusiastic about it because they think that kids abuse it to save work,” says Franc Ponti, Professor of Innovation at EADA (Barcelona). “We teach very practical and participatory classes: cell phones are prohibited and computers are turned off,” he says. Its purpose is to incorporate AI into creative processes.
Less prepared students
Doomsayers remain in every sense. We have seen it with Mustafa Suleyman, head of Microsoft AI, but also Tyler Cowen, professor at George Mason University (Virginia, USA), who from the Business Insider platform insists that universities are “producing a generation of students who will enter the labor market very unprepared for what is expected of them”, as AI transforms the world of work. There have always been economic prophets, and there have always been those who failed and those who succeeded in their prayers. If in any country in the world a Catholic analogy takes its place, it is Italy. “Because students can get answers on the spot, our job is to help them ask better questions,” advises Dirk Hovy, dean of Digital Transformation and AI at Bocconi University (Milan). “This involves strengthening critical thinking, the ability to detect biases and question the assumptions of machines and people.” Teachers change their narrative, they go from being the only authority in the classroom to acting as guides, provocateurs and companions in intellectual debate. Something that brings us back to the confrontation between man and machine. An already declared conflict that does not use blank ammunition is real. «History shows that wars can be lost before they are even declared if the defenders give up strategic ground without a fight. For universities, that land is the greatest possible exponent: human intelligence itself. If we do not fight for it now, those who come next will face an even more unequal fight,» warns Matthew Connelly in The New York Times. Higher education needs to incorporate the dialogue between Anaximenes and Pythagoras to the learning of cutting-edge technologies, like 2,626 years ago.
Equitable access, a key subject
These are the times of a new library of Alexandria or its new destruction. The binding is that of centuries ago and the prologue is as expected. “Our task is to ensure that all students have equitable access to high-quality tools and a deep understanding of how they work,” says Cloda Jenkins, associate dean of Pedagogical Education and Innovation at the Imperial Business School (United Kingdom), according to the rankings one of the greats in Europe. “And that they can use, ethically, these instruments to contribute to solving problems,” he adds. Critical thinking, diversity of ideas and collaborating with new technologies share shelves in this technological Alexandria. Some experts get carried away with a neogrammar. “The leaders of tomorrow will have to become orchestrators of artificial intelligence (AI), capable of defining intentions, guiding intelligent agents, questioning results and translating distributed intelligence into purposeful actions,” lists José Esteves, dean of the Porto Business School. The teacher is clear: ethics, creativity and discernment—although AI increases its impact—will continue to be very human. The persistence of memory.
