MBA Programs Race to Adapt to the AI Era

Author: Bloomberg Television · Watch on YouTube

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Original language: English

Original video: MBA Programs Race to Adapt to the AI Era · Channel: Bloomberg Television · 05:56 · Watch on YouTube

Topics: Enterprise AI applications

Summary

Bloomberg Businessweek senior editor Dimitra Kessenides discusses business-school rankings and how AI is changing MBA programs. Stanford’s GSB remains at the top, with strong results in compensation, networking, and entrepreneurship, while Wharton, Harvard, and other schools also rank highly. Students value human connections, faculty support, and learning experiences, even as schools work to prepare graduates for an AI-shaped job market. Schools are experimenting with AI in teaching and across departments, but approaches are still evolving and none surveyed has made it a core-curriculum requirement.

Key points

Stanford GSB has held the top position in several key ranking indexes over the past six years.
Stanford is particularly strong in networking and entrepreneurship; Wharton ranks higher in compensation.
Students say they value relationships with classmates, faculty support, and meeting people from around the world.
Students also value faculty guidance and learning that prepares them for their future work.
Wharton, Harvard, and Northwestern Kellogg are consistently among the schools near the top; UVA also performs well.
AI is prompting questions about whether case-method teaching will disappear or evolve.
Business schools are responding to rapid changes in the business world and want graduates to feel prepared for jobs.
Some schools are developing AI bots across departments, while others caution that their current plans may change.
No surveyed school has made AI a requirement of the core curriculum.
Students are expected to use AI for research, job searches, career preparation, and interview preparation.

Chapters

Start	Chapter	Summary
00:00	Why Stanford leads the rankings	Kessenides explains Stanford GSB’s sustained top position and its strengths in compensation, networking, and entrepreneurship.
01:05	What MBA students value	Students emphasize connections with classmates, faculty support, and learning that prepares them for their careers.
02:10	Other highly ranked schools and case-method teaching	The discussion covers schools near the top of the rankings and asks how AI may affect case-based instruction.
03:49	Business schools experiment with AI	Schools are trying varied approaches to AI, including using it to anticipate student questions about cases and developing bots.
05:24	AI in student job preparation	Kessenides describes likely student uses of AI and raises questions about how it may support job searches and shape employment.

Quotes

Stanford, it does seem like it’s a perennial thing — 00:32

the pro comments, what do you like most about this program overwhelmingly point to the types of things that we’re very worried about losing right now — 01:37

what is AI gonna do to this this way of teaching? — 03:16

We don’t really know where that’s gonna lead. — 04:52

They’re probably gonna use it for research. They’re most definitely gonna use it for job search and career prep, interview prep. — 05:24

Concepts and entities

MBA, AI, case method, Stanford GSB, Bloomberg Businessweek, Dimitra Kessenides, Wharton, Harvard, Northwestern Kellogg, Columbia, Chicago, MIT, UVA

Full transcript (original language)

00:00 Discuss these ratings and the impact AI is making on business schools is Bloomberg Businessweek senior editor, Dimitra Kessenides. Dimitra, great to have you with us. Sure. Let’s start with who’s at the top and who seems to be perennially at the top of this list. It’s Stanford’s GSB. Why? What is so magical seemingly about the GSB relative to the rest of these business schools? You know, they’ve managed to hold on to the top spot in a lot of the key indexes that we’ve developed as part of our methodology over the past six years. Very top of the list is compensation Uh-huh. And then networking and entrepreneurship. They have a very

00:32 strong hold on these things, and they’re getting high marks both from their alumni given historically how they’ve done in the jobs and the work that their alums have had and gone into in technology and from their recent graduates. So it’s there are small differentials from the top schools at the top of the list. But Stanford, it does seem like it’s a perennial thing, and we don’t know when it’s gonna end. We’re waiting for that year when when it’s not. But I think that they’re continuing to deliver in the ways and in the way the world is changing. Right? Technology, AI, and more. They’ve got a lot of

01:05 what people are looking for in a business world. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful like Northern California. Such a rich And it’s very nice. Yes. Exactly. To look at. So you spoke with a lot of students. You polled a lot of students. What do they value most in an MBA? You know, it’s interesting because there are these indexes that we measure, but then we solicit comments from them. And by and large, and this ties into the theme of AI because the comments are all about these these human elements. Right? Mhmm. The connections with their cohorts, the

01:37 way they feel supported by their faculty members, feeling as though they’re really all united in something, that they’re meeting interesting people from around the world. And the negative comments aren’t really very negative. Like, we ask them for both pros and cons. They don’t they don’t single out too many things except maybe they’re not happy with the way the crew services office was supporting them. But the the pro comments, what do you like most about this program overwhelmingly point to the types of things that we’re very worried about losing right now in

02:10 the world. And so it’s that’s very interesting piece of it. I think the learning aspect and the the way that they are feeling as though they have faculty members who are guiding them in the right way with respect to what they’re being taught and how they’re being sort of introduced to, work at the level that they’re gonna be pursuing once they’ve got the degree is another piece that they’re that they’re very keen on. Can you talk through, who else rounded out the top five or top 10 and where you saw movements? Anybody lose a spot or gain a spot? Sure. I mean, there is oh, there’s always lose a spot, gain

02:42 a spot. Those are not very significant moves. Stanford’s at the top. You know, consistently over the last several years, we’ve seen Wharton very high. Wharton places very high. Actually, Wharton places higher on compensation than Stanford does. Oh, interesting. I think we’re we see Wharton at the top. We see Harvard at the top. We see Northwestern Kellogg at the top. Those are really those those have been we see Columbia sort of within the top 15. We see Chicago within the top 15. MIT still UVA did well, I thought. UVA UVA always does very well. Oh, UVA has a very strong program, very, you know,

03:16 case method heavy. Harvard is the be all end all when it comes to the case method type of of teaching. UVA is it comes very close. And that’s that’s one area where, again, we’re really questioning now what is AI gonna do to this this way of teaching? And are we gonna see it go away, or are we gonna see it evolve in interesting ways? And that’s just a little preview to a story that we’re coming out with on Tuesday. Do you wanna talk a little bit more about I mean, I’m I’m very curious of how or the degree to which these schools are embracing AI, looking at it with some trepidation, or

03:49 really starting to think through how it might change the curriculum? Yeah. I mean, we’re seeing everything. Right? Because it’s moving very quickly and what they’re reacting to is what’s happening in the business world. And they’re really very concerned about doing this in a way that makes, again, students and graduates feel as though they’re prepared to get a job. Because at the end of the day, what they want is Yeah. To get this degree. The degree is really Yeah. Pay off the degree. Yeah. Pay off the degree, but get the job that they believe the MBA is positioning them for. And when they see what’s happening in the business world, it’s like, oh my gosh. We have to keep

04:21 up with what’s happening there. So we’re seeing a a really wide span of activity, whether they’re incorporating it just in their own, preparation for going into the class and teaching it to students. So with the case study, for example, you know, we had a really interesting discussion, the reporter and I both, with two professors at Harvard, Mitchell Weisenthal Karim Lacquaani, who are among the real sort of leaders at Harvard on this about how AI is helping them to kind of anticipate the questions on cases that they’re gonna get from students so

04:52 that they can then be prepared to come back at things in a way that isn’t just gonna keep everybody in this sort of AI bubble that’s gonna continue to challenge them. We see several schools developing lots of bots across every department in every way going whole hog in. We don’t really know where that’s gonna lead. Some schools told us we surveyed schools. We we’ll talk to you about what we’re doing today, but in six months, we might scrap it all and be doing something different. We might not use it as much in teaching. You don’t see anybody who’s made it a requirement of the core curriculum. You

05:24 do see them incorporating it in ways in which they they understand and they’re very aware that whatever they say, students are gonna use it. They’re probably gonna use it for research. They’re most definitely gonna use it for job search and career prep, interview prep. And then beyond that, you know, business school students aren’t really writing a lot of term papers. Right? It’s not the sort of work that you’re doing at that level. So how else are you using it? You’re using it as a way to just kind of delve a little more deeply into some of the things that you’re doing. And and really job search, that’s another big piece we have coming in the next week is, in what way is it

05:56 supporting their efforts to get a job, and then how is it factoring into what kind of job they’re getting?