From classroom to boardroom - making AI at work, work

In lecture halls, students are warned not to use Artificial Intelligence (Al) for assignments, assessments, or dissertations. Those same students are expected to use AI in boardrooms to analyse trends, generate insights, and drive efficiency. It is not a contradiction born from ignorance or stubbornness. It reflects how quickly everything is changing.

- Professor Riyad Moosa | Associate Professor | Accountancy | College of Business & Economics | University of Johannesburg (UJ) | [e-mail] |

As AI reshapes how we learn and work, universities and employers are trying to keep up. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Technology, university education and the workplace requirements are evolving along different timelines, and aligning them requires more understanding, not less. We have been here before; calculators were once feared before becoming essential tools.

Universities - cautious but adapting

When AI tools like ChatGPT became widely accessible, universities approached cautiously, which is understandable: Would students use AI to bypass learning altogether? Could you trust who wrote an assignment? Would critical thinking suffer? These are fair questions.

Universities are responsible for protecting the value of a qualification, and the pace of change has been fast. Educators are not opposed to innovation; they are cautious because what gets lost in the rush matters. Educators are still learning what AI means for their disciplines, students, and teaching. At the same time, many universities are beginning to experiment with ways to integrate AI into the curriculum responsibly.

My research found that AI can enrich learning by making content more accessible, inclusive, and adaptable, but it cannot replace the human insight and connection educators bring. Used well, AI can take over repetitive or administrative work, freeing educators to focus more on the human aspects of teaching.