B-schools in the AI Era: Balancing Intelligence with Humanity

The real challenge for business schools today isn't adopting AI, it's protecting the human spirit of learning.

- VARUN NAGARAJ Dean, SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR)

ASK ANY DEAN what big trends are impacting business schools, and AI will top their list. I'll do the same, but with a slightly different interpretation of AI as both a friend and a foe.

As AI becomes a reality, every business school must determine how it will affect the industries in which our graduates will work. At SPJIMR, the approach is two-fold: first, to understand how AI is transforming business practices, and second, to understand how AI is changing the learning and teaching experience.

From the science and art of marketing at an FMCG company to portfolio analysis at an investment management firm and route planning for a quick commerce company, AI is transforming how business is practised.

Hence, we've started introducing AI use cases and examples in our courses. When industry says students need to “know” AI, they don’t mean using prompt engineering to generate reports; they mean understanding how it applies to real-world contexts like customer experience, decision systems, and supply chains. Students also need to build the models that will help them solve real-world problems. I want all our students to be able to design, code, and prototype their own ideas, regardless of their specialisation.

THE DEEPER CHALLENGE

The second part of AI’s impact is more fundamental—it changes what professors do and how students learn. At SPJIMR, faculty are encouraged to experiment and integrate AI across every phase of learning: pre-class preparation, in-class participation, post-class reflection, and even evaluation.

From a governance point of view, we're not taking a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach; we encourage experimentation because we don’t yet know what works best. This also keeps our faculty intellectually alert, in what I call a ‘virus-antivirus’ dynamic with how learners use AI.