AI in the Carlson Curriculum
Preparing Future Business Leaders for an AI World
Artificial intelligence is changing how organizations operate, how decisions are made and what employers expect from business graduates. At Minnesota Carlson, we are thoughtfully adapting our curriculum for an AI world. We are preparing students not simply to use AI, but to understand its possibilities and limitations, apply it effectively, and exercise sound judgment about when and how it should be used.
Rather than treating AI as a standalone topic, Carlson is integrating AI throughout the educational experience. Students encounter AI across disciplines and in a variety of learning contexts, building their capabilities over time and applying them to authentic business problems.
How AI Is Being Integrated into the Carlson Curriculum
All students need a working understanding of AI and its role in business. Students learn what AI can and cannot do, how generative AI works, and how to recognize limitations such as inaccurate outputs, bias and over reliance. This foundation helps students become informed and discerning users of emerging technologies.
We teach students to keep human insight and decision making at the forefront of AI use. Our goal is to develop graduates who can combine AI capabilities with distinctly human strengths — critical thinking, judgment, creativity, communication, ethical reasoning and leadership. These durable capabilities will help students adapt as technologies continue to evolve throughout their careers.
AI is not confined to a single course or discipline. Students will encounter AI in areas such as accounting, finance, marketing, management, supply chain, operations and strategy, learning how its applications and implications differ in various business functions. Repeated exposure helps students develop the ability to identify where AI can create value — and where human expertise and judgment remain essential.
Students develop AI capabilities by applying them through experiential learning. Applied assignments, cases, projects and simulations give students opportunities to use AI to analyze information, generate and evaluate alternatives, solve problems, and support business decisions. Students are expected to examine and verify AI outputs, explain their reasoning, and take responsibility for the quality of their work.
Learning also extends beyond individual courses. Internships, experiential projects with real organizations, case competitions and global experiences give students additional ways to explore how AI is reshaping organizations and professional work.
Effective AI use requires more than technical proficiency. Across their Carlson experience, students consider questions of accuracy, bias, privacy, transparency, data stewardship, academic integrity and accountability. They learn that responsible leadership includes knowing when to use AI, when to question its recommendations and when human judgment should take precedence.
Carlson holds students to high standards for academic integrity when using generative AI (GenAI).
To strengthen their understanding of responsible AI use, students can complete GenAI+U Student, a self-paced online course developed by University Libraries. The course addresses the ethical implications of generative AI and academic integrity considerations, and students who finish receive a certificate of completion.
AI technologies and workplace practices are changing rapidly, and the Carlson curriculum will continue to evolve with them. Faculty and staff collaborate across programs and disciplines to share effective practices, experiment with new approaches and continually strengthen how AI is incorporated into teaching and learning.
Through faculty development (such as the GenAI literacy course), communities of practice, shared resources and engagement with employers and industry, Carlson is building an approach to AI education that is both forward-looking and grounded in our educational mission. The objective is not to prepare students for a particular AI tool. It is to prepare them for a career in which tools will continually change. Carlson graduates will be prepared to learn new technologies, evaluate them critically, use them responsibly and combine them with the human judgment needed to lead.
AI & Career Support
In addition to adapting our curriculum for AI, at Carlson, we are thoughtfully incorporating AI into every aspect of career development, from resume development and job searching to interviewing and networking.
Graduate students encounter this throughout orientation and career programming, while undergraduate students engage with AI-enabled career development throughout their 1st-year Design Your Career course.
We use multiple AI tools to help students strengthen their skills and effectiveness, while intentionally pairing those tools with the expertise and guidance of our career coaches and helping students recognize that AI should augment, not replace, their own judgment and expertise. We regularly evaluate our AI resources and tools to ensure we are providing students with current, relevant guidance as the technology continues to evolve.
Our goal is not only to help students use AI effectively in their job search today, but to develop the judgment and skills they need to use AI thoughtfully throughout their careers.
