PEDAGOGY
brain engagement in their writing than those who had no access to a technological tool. Other studies have indicated that ChatGPT users tend to produce uniform answers and arguments. In short, the evidence underlines the urgent need for a long-term study on the technology’s potential impact on learning and brain development. The rise of YouTubers and social media influencers certainly challenges the traditional model of an academic-led business class. We need to ask ourselves whether instructors should become professional influencers in order to have more impact or credibility in the lives of younger generations. What’s clear is that using Zoom to deliver classes is not enough in this evolving ecosystem. While AI agents act as tools or assistants today, there is a high probability of them becoming autonomous strategic reasoning systems in the future. In the book, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns , Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Michael Horn notes how genAI is transforming universities in the US. In particular, he highlights how traditional degrees and skillsets are losing ground to a focus on technical skills, quick programmes and fast learning. The upshot is that it is becoming more appealing for this new generation to get an IT technical skills diploma from Google than from an established higher education institution. Looking ahead to a new strategic model How can business schools best teach subjects such as uncertainty, risk, decision-making, global markets and global strategy? Many authors still highlight the role of tutors and professors in active classrooms. However, a new model is emerging that re-examines the central concept of global strategy+ in business education. This is a method designed to understand global uncertainty, and which is itself the result of the ongoing crisis of traditional values and law in the face of disruptive technology and multipolar powers. For example, when we receive news about layoffs in a technological industry and we look for the reasons, there are three factors to consider: automation, economic elasticity and outsourcing. In other words, the industry in question could be adjusting its threshold of innovations and impact on the environment because of electricity and water demands. In this context, rethinking and recognising the value of a global strategy+ approach is fundamental. In response to AI’s challenge of university and business school curricula, the goal should be to follow the paradigm of hard engagement. This entails the implementation of digital immersion, virtual reality, augmented reality, extended reality, headsets, simulation labs and so on. This format provides an opportunity for business education to develop a new strategic model that can engage and prepare the minds of our emerging generations in a climate of global uncertainty. After all, while markets and businesses currently favour those with technical skills, many of today’s roles are likely to be automated in the long run. This puts the future role of the university into question, not least whether institutions will need to adopt new ways of working while deep cognitive tasks increasingly lie in the hands of AI. The challenge will be to rethink a new concept of the global strategy+ method in a contemporary business education setting.
world of social media, internet, chats and information overload. Motivating today’s students is not easy and persuasion is even more difficult, making effective communication a delicate and complex system. Moreover, students recognise the gap between a traditional business class and the world of smartphones all too well. Hard engagement & high productivity The hard engagement format is completely different. It results from a structure of different types of algorithms, be they psychological codes or mindset wiring programmes. Smartphones are the fulcrum for this technology, hosting immersion technology, genAI tools and social media platforms. Indeed, the likes of ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, PixVerse and ElevenLabs are building an ecosystem that presents a new model of human learning and thinking. All are designed by experts on generative systems of large language models – engineers, marketers, strategists, psychologists and philosophers. The goal, according to the developers, is to achieve fast and more productive results while keeping users interested, motivated and scrolling in an open ocean of stimuli, information, news and online advertisements. The question arises as to whether the systems used by traditional tutors and professors still have a place in business education. App tutors, personalised learning and automated instructions promise quick results and boosts in productivity, developers will claim. Moreover, the rapidly evolving nature of this disruptive technology is widening the gap between a traditional business class and the social media experience. Apps and chats offer platforms for human learning that require only a click for the output – and the hard work – to be executed in the name of high productivity and metrics. Academic insights, such as Nobel prize laureate Geoffrey Hinton’s research on neural networks and Nick Boström’s work on superintelligence have reached the same conclusion: that genAI is on the path to developing a higher productivity system that will revolutionise education and employment. AI’s potential impact on learning Business education is, therefore, trapped between the challenge of soft and hard engagement. Business classes based around the traditional notion of critical thinking may no longer be fit for purpose. A 2025 study from the MIT Media Lab explored the impact of AI on the brain in relation to an essay-writing task. It found that study participants who used ChatGPT displayed less neural connectivity and
BIOGRAPHY Iván Figueroa is a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP). Previously, he was a professor at the University of Miami, Florida and the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. Figueroa is also a member of the Peruvian public policy think tank, the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, where he is developing research on education. He holds a BA in philosophy from PUCP and a PhD in literature from the University of Miami
Ambition • ISSUE 5 • 2026 33
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