Alongside core business fundamentals, today’s MBA students are likely to learn about areas such as machine learning, AI strategy, and data-driven decision-making, as well as emerging aspects of AI such as ethics and bias.
At some pioneering schools, such as the International Institute of Management Development (IMD), students are also gaining opportunities to use AI tools as they navigate the learning experience.
To find out just what this entails, BusinessBecause spoke to current IMD MBA student, Zareen Cheema, about her experience learning with AI.
Choosing an AI-enhanced MBA
Zareen studied mechanical engineering and worked in the automotive industry before embarking on her MBA at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. Zareen believes that the automotive industry is at the heart of transformation, and having worked at Volvo, Sweden’s largest car company, for some five years, she wanted to study an MBA to gain a new perspective.
Zareen knew she wanted a learning experience that was highly relevant to the workplace of today, and sought a business school with an evolving tech ecosystem. The future-oriented MBA curriculum at IMD, which placed among the 10 best MBAs in Europe within the 2025 Financial Times MBA Ranking and is listed as Europe's top business school by Bloomberg Businessweek, combines leadership development with the latest award-winning AI that bridges theory with practice.
“The program at IMD is very agile and flexible, they were changing fast as things in the world were moving,” says Zareen.
The MBA program includes a month-long future lab in Singapore, teaching skills such as data cleaning, data modelling, and how to make data-driven decisions. “Those skills are really useful for someone [like me] who comes from a hard mechanical engineering background,” she observes.
IMD supplements this focus on teaching modern business skills by integrating AI into the learning experience. The school recently introduced a new AI chatbot, IMD AI+, into its MBA program. Using the tool has had a significant impact on the learning experience, Zareen feels, elevating the MBA journey in two key ways.
How AI can elevate the MBA experience
1. AI can be a private tutor offering 24/7 support
IMD AI+ is a generative AI tool trained on the school’s curriculum and case material, built to help students learn—and interrogate—topics such as financial concepts, strategic frameworks, performance data, and marketing.
Omar Toulan PhD, dean of the MBA program at IMD, says students can ask the GPT questions based on class content and it will access both internal course material and the broader internet. It serves, he says, as an “MBA in your back pocket".
“The chatbot records and transcribes lectures and give you highlights of ones you might have missed,” says Zareen, who has used the new tool throughout her MBA journey.
“The chatbot creates an environment where I feel like I am chatting to a professor, it has the same tone, it has context and history. Of course, I could still speak to professors, but this AI gives me another layer of interaction beyond traditional working hours.”
While she feels the tool has been a valuable addition to the MBA experience, Zareen also notes that it supplements rather than replaces human interaction and professor guidance.
2. AI gives you more confidence as a future leader
One of the key areas where AI chatbots such as IMD AI+ can assist students is in providing feedback on assignments, covering a broad range of areas to help them improve.
“I received real-time feedback—did I ask the right questions, did I do scenario planning and use transversal skills, also how could I improve? [This was] rather than having to wait until the end of a module,” Zareen says.
The tool is part of IMD’s agile approach to integrating technology into its MBA program, seeking to help students interact with course material more dynamically and further develop their knowledge and skills.
“As well as comments on our individual assignments, students see graphs of where our skills are right now,” she adds.
This approach has been helpful for Zareen, whose key goal when entering the MBA was to get out of her comfort zone and study new topics such as finance, accounting, and strategic decision-making.
“I wanted to go back to my industry with bolder ideas, with more confidence, and to be a leader,” she says. Through tailored coaching offered by both professors and IMD AI+, paired with the program’s dedicated Leadership Model, Zareen feels her MBA is helping achieve her goal.
With a program that blends both essential knowledge that refines students’ business acumen, and a focus on modern technologies, the IMD MBA is designed to prepare students for today’s workforce. Zareen feels this combination has proved effective in making her a more well-rounded professional.
“AI is going to augment your abilities as a leader and to make decisions, but I’ve also learned kindness and empathy.”
Advice for enrolling in the right MBA
For Zareen, it was the prospect of elevating her business knowledge and gaining an insight into how cutting-edge technologies can influence business that drove her toward choosing the IMD MBA.
For others considering their own path, she advises them to weigh up what’s important to them; and, once decided, to embrace the experience.
“An MBA is one of the single biggest investments of my life but it’s the decision that has helped me most in my life so far,” notes Zareen. “Don’t wait for the right time, if you want to do it just do it. There’s never an ideal moment to start.”
