Entrepreneur and TV celebrity Mark Cuban recently said, “If you’re not using [AI] to move faster or make smarter decisions, you’re behind.” As such, knowing how to use AI will soon be considered a baseline skill, like email and Microsoft Office applications.
In order to prepare students for this inevitability, faculty at the Engler College of Business are actively engaged in bring AI to the classroom, either as a teaching tool or within the context of class projects, as well as in their own research.
Dr. Murray Jennex, the Clinical & Gensler Professor of Computer Information Systems, says that although he does not use AI as a teaching tool, “I do use it to look up stuff and find materials for class.” For example, he continues, “I use AI in CIDM6310 in an assignment where students use AI to write a strategic report doing strategic analyses. After they did the report without AI, they compare the two to see which does better. I am moving to having students do a digital transformation using AI to transform a business process.”
Jennex is most involved in AI research, including a paper both presented and subsequently published on Ethics in AI when used in healthcare ads. He also has papers on AI in KM(Knowledge Management) and the other on emotion in AI, among numerous others in progress.
Dr. Brandli Stitzel, Associate Professor of Economics, has used AI to summarize modules he has written for his online classes, and has required students to submit an assignment using ChatGPT, which they then have to critique and annotate the output. Rahul Chauhan has followed a different tack. “While I encourage the use of AI, I do not actively assign AI-specific content in my courses just yet. Rather, I inform them about the latest AI-oriented trends, such as mass layoffs, outsourcing, etc. I encourage my students to embrace it, and utilize it to aid them on course content within reason. He has also offered his students the option of an oral exam, in which it would be impossible to use AI for cheating purposes.
One of the most interesting applications are the ones being developed by Dr. Barbara Wang, Professor of Finance & Gene Edwards Professor of Banking. “I’ve used AI extensively this fall and found it incredibly helpful. In my international finance class, I created AI-generated fictional cases—Bufflandia–and its currency, the Buff peso. I’ve also experimented with AI-generated cartoons. They require some luck (and a lot of patience), but when they work, they really work.”
“AI has also helped me redesign my assignments and make them more engaging. Instead of ‘creating a short video explaining your currency pair’s movements over the past 10 years,’ students now take on a more eye-catching project titled Pair Watch: Tracking 10 Years of Currency Drama,” she says. “I’ve assigned projects where students use AI directly—both as a research tool and as something to evaluate using what they’ve learned in class.”
Dr. Carl Zhang, Assistant Professor of Computer Information Systems & Paul Engler Professor of Business Innovation, says, “I use AI as a teaching tool to help with background study. For example, I use it to quickly go through a new, emerging programming technology.” This is a common refrain among many faculty. He reports that “I am working on discipline-related research about AI recommendation systems on e-commerce websites in the CIS field,” and encourages students to use AI in his SystemAnalysis and Design course (CIDM 4360).
Dr. Leslie Ramos Salazar, the Abdullat Professor of Business Communication and Decision Management, says, “I’ve used it to create tailored images in my slides and figures. I’ve also used it to improve the quality of examples introduced during lectures.” This makes it easier to explain more abstract subjects such as the Law of Large Numbers and ANOVA. She also requires students to use AI to create surveys.
Students of Dr. Neil Meredith, Director of Continuous Improvement, Professor of Economics & Dana Professor of Business, are advised to lean into AI. “I have encouraged students to use AI to help them learn material in their problem sets, to help prepare for exams, and to help them with their written assignments” But he does impose limits. “. I require students to tell me what AI they used and what they used it for. I also ask students to provide me with a copy of their input and output.”
In Marketing, Dr. Mary Liz Brooks, Associate Professor of Digital Business and Communication & Barbara Petty Professor of Business Communication, requires students to use AI to develop class discussion questions from resources, to summarize chapter notes, to brainstorm in-class activities, and to create analysis flowcharts. Other student assignments find them using AI to create campaign elements, to improve their work in Adobe software applications, and to create marketing visuals.
Four Marketing Professors are using AI as a tool to predict student outcomes on the final assessment exam in MKT3340 Principles of Marketing. Drs Ashley Morgan, Brooks, Turkan Kilic, and Nick Gerlich are compiling data from the Fall 2025 semester across five class sections, which include both on-campus and online versions.
Using ChatGPT and Gemini3, the team started with the cumulative grade percentage of each student across all MKT3340 Principles of Marketing sections. They then asked an AI agent to take the assessment exam, which is 50 multiple-choice questions, but with the knowledge that a student with a 74% grade thus far, for example, is doing this task. The AI agent would then take the exam as that C student. The process was repeated for each of the 225+ students in both of the AI platforms. Essentially, the team demonstrated that an AI agent can be told to not be so smart.
Lastly, Dr. Gerlich has used Gemini 3 to create an outline for a possible new graduate course called AI in Marketing. The AI agent was able to scan many course syllabi used elsewhere to craft a concise 12-week course that covers all of the currently relevant topics.
While there are critics of AI from all walks of business and life, the reality is that AI is not going away, and that Mr. Cuban is right. Training students to be ahead first requires faculty to make the initial move. Our goal is to ensure that our graduates walk away with not only a diploma, but also the skills needed to survive in a rapidly emerging world.