When IESE Business School launched its first executive course focused on artificial intelligence in 2019, AI itself couldn’t have predicted how the next few years would turn out.
Because fast forward to the end of 2022, and the explosion of ChatGPT heralded a new dawn for AI: going from ‘predicting and classifying’ to ‘creating.’ That’s according to Xili Wu, executive director of the Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Management initiative at IESE Business School in Spain.
"In 2023 and 2024 the demand [for IESE’s AI programs] shot through the roof,” she explains. “In 2023 we ran three editions - oversubscribed. In 2024, we ran three editions again - oversubscribed. We also did an additional special program in Warsaw because there was so much demand for it."
In 2025, IESE will run five editions of their Artificial Intelligence for Executives course spread across Barcelona, Munich, Madrid and New York. They will also run an extra program in Budapest. All are expected to be oversubscribed.
It’s a similar story at Emory University, whose Leveraging AI for Business Success program has become one of its most popular executive courses.
"That’s the one which is getting the most interest and most enrollments. And enrollments are going up,” says Nicola Barrett, chief corporate learning officer at Emory.
What do AI executive courses teach?
Barrett is keen to stress that the aim of these executive courses isn’t to ‘school’ people on AI. Instead, they want to encourage students to think about the implications of the technology.
“What does it mean for your marketing department? What does it mean for the wider organization? What does it mean for the very way you do business?,” she states.
The course at IESE also focuses on the bigger picture.
"You may have to change the way you organize your organization to implement AI," Wu says. "We really want you to throw a lot of things out of the window and rethink how your business could be run."
To do that, IESE runs real-life case studies as part of its program. For example, students examine how a pharmaceutical company integrated AI into its business and how it changed the company, for better or for worse.
That’s an important point, because these courses don’t assume that AI is a fully-matured technology that will transform your business overnight.
"It’s far from mature,” states Barrett. “AI has made a huge impact already, but it is still very much an emerging technology."
To counteract that, Emory recently added a module on AI maturity to its course in which students learn whether their organization is ready for AI - and whether AI is ready for their organization.
According to Barrett the aim of the module is to ensure "the right pieces are in place" to deploy AI within a business, rather than forcing its use among employees.
Given the current state of AI, teaching students the limitations of the technology may prove to be just as valuable as teaching them the benefits.
How courses are evolving to meet demand
AI has evolved rapidly since these courses were first launched, which means that providers are having to evolve just as quickly.
"The course is not stationary, and we have to continually revise the program in accordance with what's happening in AI,” says Wu. At IESE, the latest changes include a greater focus on generative AI, how to implement AI within the wider organization, and its impact on your business model.
"We still run a version of this course twice a year, and the content has to be redesigned every time to make sure that it's current and using the latest technology,” states Barrett, adding that most modifications to the course come from Emory faculty.
"They're teaching it in their classes, so their motivation is to bring in the latest examples of the technology and its implications."
So far, it would appear that students are responding well to the changes. Artificial Intelligence for Executives is one of the top-rated executive courses at IESE whilst feedback from Emory students has been broadly positive, with one graduate describing it as the perfect amount of information for the average person trying to learn more about AI.
“I didn't know much about AI before the course,” says another, ”but now I can hold a conversation and be a translator between providers and leadership. I've gathered new AI skills which I hope can apply in my line of work.”
Such is the pace of change in AI, regularly updating these courses regularly isn’t really a choice for schools like Emory and IESE - it’s a necessity. But as long as they continue to provide students with the AI knowledge that they can apply to their current role, the demand for them is unlikely to diminish anytime soon.
Nick Harland is a freelance higher education writer based in Sheffield, UK. His work has appeared in the likes of QS, AACSB Insights, MBA.com, BusinessBecause and The PIE News. He has also written content for various universities and business schools around the world.
