In a rapidly evolving economic landscape, business schools face an existential crisis. The writer says AI reveals the inadequacies of traditional curricula, requiring a fundamental reimagining of business education.
The greatest threat facing business schools is not artificial intelligence. For more than a century, business schools have occupied a privileged position in society. They have produced executives, managers, entrepreneurs and policymakers. Their qualifications became pathways to employment, leadership and economic mobility. Their rankings became symbols of prestige.
Today, however, business schools face an existential crisis. Not because AI is replacing professors, but because AI is exposing a deeper truth: many business schools are still preparing graduates for organisations, economies and careers that no longer exist.
The world that shaped modern business education is disappearing. Artificial intelligence, the digital economy, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the knowledge economy and a rapidly changing global political economy are transforming the nature of work, leadership and value creation. According to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, technological change and AI will reshape millions of jobs by 2030, while employers increasingly prioritise analytical thinking, technological literacy, adaptability, creativity and lifelong learning over traditional credentials.
