Yale SOM Introduces New AI-Focused Required Course and Expanded Core Content
Yale MBA students will take a new course focused on practical applications of AI tools, and existing courses will include additional technical training and discussion of the technology’s societal impact.
The Yale School of Management’s senior faculty has approved the introduction of a new course in the MBA core curriculum that will instruct students in the use of AI tools and methods that are increasingly becoming essential in managerial decision-making. The new course will provide a foundation for AI-related topics throughout the curriculum and will advance a broad effort at the school, spanning teaching, research, and student activities, to understand and leverage both the opportunities and the perils of fast-developing AI technology.
Yale SOM Dean Kerwin Charles said that the enhanced AI content in the curriculum is an essential step. “With the school’s unique and enduring commitment to transform the world for the better, we see this as the ideal moment to prepare students who want to shape the next phase of AI,” said Charles. “The inclusion of required AI-focused content throughout our curriculum recognizes the imperative for future business leaders to grasp how AI can be applied to business problems in ways that responsibly create value.”
The new course, which will be taught in the first half of the fall semester starting with the 2026-27 academic year, will focus on practical applications of AI tools. Students will get hands-on experience building agents, working with AI to structure and utilize large data sets, and vibe coding business applications. In subsequent core courses, students will both extend and expand their engagement with AI by developing further technical skills and studying the broader societal impact of the revolutionary technology. For example:
- In the Innovator course, which covers frameworks related to entrepreneurship and innovation, students will discuss AI across multiple class sessions and utilize the technology to turn ideas into real ventures.
- In Workforce, which covers HR strategy and leadership, students will examine AI and automation and their impacts on managers, employees, and other workers. They’ll study how AI could change the talent pipeline and who benefits most from its use.
- State and Society, a course that examines policy issues at the intersection of business and government, will dive into the broad implications of AI for society, including algorithmic bias, effects on the labor market, and how the technology can be deployed to create social good.
Visit our AI information hub to learn more about AI-related programs, events, classes, resources, and research at Yale SOM.
Edieal Pinker, BearingPoint Professor of Operations Research and special advisor to the dean, said that the updates to the curriculum were intended to prepare students to have impact across a wide range of endeavors. “Our students are the generation living through this transition and the ones who will determine how AI use evolves,” said Pinker. “The combination of practical experience and big-picture thinking will create an environment where people from many backgrounds with varying points of view can engage fruitfully on questions related to the effectiveness, ethics, and impact of artificial intelligence.”
Yale SOM students can also choose from dozens of electives with substantial AI content. These include courses focused on using AI systems for business decision-making, such as Generative AI for Managers and Large Language Models: Technology and Application; technical and subject-based courses that draw on AI and related technologies, including Financial Econometrics & Machine Learning and Big Data & Customer Analytics; and practitioner-taught courses that expose students to the latest uses of AI in business, such as Digital Disruption and Financial Computing.
Tauhid Zaman, associate professor of operations management, will teach the new core course. Zaman, who has offered an AI-focused elective for the last two years, says he has seen how the technology can empower business students. “Our students have incredible, creative ideas,” he said. “They want to accomplish big things; they’re thinking broadly about business and society. AI gives them the power to create an app or a business or a new process that can bring to life what they’ve envisioned quickly, accurately, and cheaply. For me, it’s a Promethean moment.”
Outside the classroom, Yale SOM continues to be a hub for rich discussions of how AI is changing work and culture. During the spring 2026 semester, more than 40 talks, forums, seminars, panels, and other events engaged with AI. The third annual Responsible AI in Global Business conference brought hundreds of participants to campus; the student-run conference has become one of the keystone events in the academic year.
Meanwhile, faculty are leveraging AI in the classroom and in their research. An informal discussion group in which faculty members share ideas and best practices has grown rapidly. Participants have built AI agents that help answer student questions about assignments, deepen student discussions of case studies, and find material to enrich class sessions. Others use it to sharpen research ideas.
The impact of AI on industries, organizations, and culture is a major theme of faculty research. Recent studies have looked at how to train AI to perform better and more responsibly, whether AI can accelerate academic research, and where and when AI agents outperform humans.
Sang Kim, professor of operations management and senior associate dean for centers and executive programs, led the faculty committee that proposed the new AI course. He said that the growing expertise of the Yale SOM faculty will benefit students across the school’s programs. “It is essential that our students graduate being comfortable using these tools in their professional roles,” said Kim. “We are being responsive to student and employer demand in that respect. But we also think it’s crucial that SOM graduates think broadly and critically about how AI tools can help them improve their businesses and improve the world.”
Anjani Jain, deputy dean for academic programs and professor in the practice of management, said that he’s confident the new AI material in the core will help students use the technology more capably and more responsibly. “The thoughtful inclusion of AI content throughout our core demonstrates our faculty’s commitment to keeping the school at the frontier of understanding. But notwithstanding my enthusiasm for the technology, I believe that you still can’t outsource judgment. Our approach to AI is not solely about the technology but also about how our students can utilize it in managerial decision-making to attain the best outcomes for themselves and for society.”
