AI disruption reshapes India's top B-schools: How institutions are preparing students for an AI-driven future

Artificial intelligence (AI), and now more specifically Generative AI, is changing the way the world works. There is hardly any sector that will not be impacted by AI and a furious debate rages in corporate and academic circles about the pros and cons of this major disruption. It is not surprising that academia, in particular B-schools, is also coming to terms with the fact that the AI wave will change everything—from the way classes are conducted to how students must prepare themselves for a new world where corporate boardrooms and shop floors will be guided by AI. Consequently, most B-schools are going back to the drawing board and looking at their curricula to see how they can best prepare their students for this new age where disruption will be the norm. India, which has often been at the forefront of new technologies, can ride the AI wave, with entrepreneurs harnessing AI to be major job creators in a world where those well-versed with new tech will be the most sought after.

It is against this backdrop of deep-rooted change that we bring you the Silver Jubilee Edition of our much-awaited India’s Best B-schools survey this year. This 25th edition (the 12th in partnership with MDRA) captures the far-reaching changes sweeping the corridors of the country’s topmost business schools, where both faculty and students are preparing themselves for an AI-driven world. As Nitish Jain, President of the S.P. Jain School of Global Management, writes in his column, “The global AI wave presents Indian B-schools with a choice. We can either ride this wave or get swept away by it.” Jain talks of a future where AI tutors may be teaching the basics to students, freeing up the faculty for “higher-order thinking”. From using it for training students to easing the admissions process, AI is set to dominate the B-schools landscape like never before. “The future of business is being written in lines of code, and it is high time our B-schools became fluent in this new language,” Jain writes. “There is a big impact of Gen AI, and it will play a major role in the future. As faculty, we are still uncertain about what its exact role in education will be. Will the way we currently teach or design the curriculum remain relevant?” asks Kunal Ganguly, Dean (Development) of IIM Kashipur. As Anand Adhikari, who helmed this special issue, writes, in an era where digitisation and Gen AI are poised to reshape the corporate sector, B-schools have a crucial role in bridging the skills gap.

Coming to this year’s rankings, IIM Calcutta tops the list of the two-year MBA programmes for the fourth time in a row, while Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, tops the charts in the Executive MBA space. upGrad occupies the pole position in the edtech category while IIM Ahmedabad tops in short-term executive programmes. In the two-year MBA rankings, IIMs continue to dominate the Top 5, with S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research at No. 3 being the only private institute to find a place among the five top positions.