The spread of artificial intelligence has sparked significant debate within the business school community about how to prevent students from short-circuiting their learning journeys. It certainly feels like a rearguard campaign for business faculty at this point, as students seem more focused on effort-saving shortcuts than on utilizing AI tools as enablers to expand their potential as critical thinkers.
This contrasts sharply with the key message of the opening plenary at the EFMD Annual Conference last month, which asserts that managers need more, not less, critical thinking to remain relevant in the future. It resonates well with the broader theme in the debate surrounding AI: that we should emphasize developing artistic and creative competencies, or, in short, “humanize” the way we educate future managers.
BACK TO THE ROOTS: THE IMPORTANCE OF A ‘LIBERAL EDUCATION’
Historically, leading thinkers such as Peter Drucker, Charles Handy, and Howard Thomas have championed “liberal education” as the cornerstone of management education. This perspective views management not merely as a technical discipline but as a complex social practice that requires broad intellectual foundations.
The cultivation of critical thinking, or the ability to analyze assumptions, evaluate evidence, and construct reasoned arguments, has long been regarded as the essential outcome of this “liberal” approach to business education. Critical thinking enables future leaders to navigate ambiguity, challenge conventional wisdom, and make judgments in complex organizational contexts.
However, as AI tools rapidly proliferate across educational environments, this foundational commitment to developing self-aware, reflective, adaptive, and humble business leaders faces an unprecedented challenge that can be likened to a swimmer trying to reach shore during low tide.
LEARNING FROM THE INTERNET REVOLUTION
The internet revolution has fundamentally transformed the management and processing of information. Instead of categorizing, storing, and memorizing factual knowledge, we are now “googling it.” Electronic communication and document archives have migrated to the cloud, increasingly resembling disorganized data dumps that can be searched as needed.
Student behavior has evolved in tandem with the rise of search engines, which have effectively replaced textbooks and diminished the perceived need to retain information in long-term memory. Research has indicated that the internet revolution, in its entirety, has negatively impacted students’ cognitive abilities, much like calculators have weakened our mental arithmetic skills. Shorter attention spans and declining reading comprehension are merely the tip of the iceberg.
NEXT STOP: THE AI REVOLUTION
In just a few years, large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek have become everyday tools that produce fluent, contextually relevant, human-like text and analytical output. Not surprisingly, students are turning to these tools to generate essays, solve mathematical assignments, write code, and analyze data. When students receive a ready-made answer, they often succumb to the temptation of skipping essential parts of the learning process, such as searching for sources, comparing viewpoints, debating with peers, linking research questions to outcomes, and building interpretive narratives.
A recent study by Corvinus University of Budapest found that students frequently abandon traditional learning strategies when allowed to use AI. Low-performing students, in particular, appreciate the advantages of taking shortcuts. This ultimately leads to shallower reasoning, poorer problem-solving skills, and diminished originality. It may also result in intellectual carelessness, as they fail to recognize when output lacks logical structure, factual accuracy, and analytical depth.
Even basic AI usage, such as grammar correction with Grammarly or QuillBot, can be detrimental by discouraging students from cultivating essential writing and communication skills. Important related issues are ensuring fairness of access and propagating the ethical use of AI (which appears to be an evolving concept).
MOVING FORWARD: CHANGING THE ASSESSMENT REGIME
Many business schools have revised their assessment frameworks to enhance the objectivity of grading and mitigate the impact of potential ethical misconduct. This includes, for instance, placing greater reliance on individual sit-down exams, shifting the grading weight of thesis work to the oral defense, and requiring a passing grade in all module assessments to achieve a passing grade overall.
In contrast, so-called portfolio exams offer more than just a temporary fix. They can be likened to learning journals, facilitating the ongoing evaluation of individual learning in connection with student engagement, both inside and outside the classroom. In addition to discouraging cramming, they are also excellently suited for integrating AI into pedagogy. For that reason, EBS University of Business and Law has introduced portfolio exams as the primary assessment form in its MBA program.
AI can also be built into the assessment process itself, including team-based and project-based assignments. Experimental evidence from Corvinus University suggests that the active use of AI during the creative phase of an assignment, in combination with critical thinking exercises, leads to outperformance compared to students using only simple prompting.
MOVING FORWARD: ENHANCE AI LITERACY OF FACULTY
Encouraging faculty to embrace new technologies in degree provision is often a struggle. Prominent examples include their lagging uptake of hybrid delivery or the use of learning platforms to structure out-of-class learning. Why should AI be any different? It is because AI directly challenges the authority of faculty and erodes their monopoly on knowledge.
Encouraging students to brainstorm, ideate, and reflect with AI is an incentive-compatible approach. The appreciation of using AI as a thinking partner in pedagogy, however, requires continuous upskilling that universities are currently underinvesting in.
GAME-CHANGING MOVE: BUILD PEDAGOGY AROUND AI
A game-changing move is to proactively build pedagogy around AI, integrating it as a core component of the learning process rather than treating it as an external tool to be policed. This involves designing assignments that intentionally utilize AI to address complex problems, allowing students to experience its capabilities and limitations firsthand.
Students could be tasked with using AI for initial data gathering and analysis, followed by rigorous in-class debates and peer reviews of the AI’s output and their interpretations. Faculty roles would shift from being primary knowledge transmitters to facilitators of learning, guiding students on effectively prompting AI, critically questioning its outputs, and ethically integrating AI-generated insights into their work. This pedagogical shift would require training faculty and students in “prompt engineering” and data interpretation.
WRAPPING UP: HOW TO KEEP UP WITH AI INNOVATIONS
AI will continue to evolve rapidly. Will business schools evolve alongside it, or will they merely chase after it? To stay in sync with AI developments, business schools must implement agile governance structures that promote experimentation, cross-functional dialogue, and continuous learning. They should start by cultivating a culture where critical reflection on the effects of AI is as essential as its adoption. AI governance should propel both innovation and academic integrity.
Furthermore, we recommend the establishment of digital innovation hubs within business schools to explore emerging technologies (currently AI and others in the future) through experimentation and pilot projects that assess their value not only in education and research but also in service functions. These hubs should also serve as centers for advising, training, and inspiring faculty to engage with new tools in a thoughtful and effective manner.
Péter Fehér is the Director of International Alliances at Corvinus University of Budapest, Associate Professor at Corvinus Institute of Data Analytics and Information Systems and founder of the Corvinus Fintech Center. Ulrich Hommel is Managing Director of XOLAS Advisors, a higher education consultancy, and is also Vice Dean of Education and Senior Professor of Finance at EBS University of Business and Law, Germany.
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