Michigan Ross adds AI concentration to its Full-Time MBA: What educators should know
The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business announced a new artificial intelligence concentration for Full-Time MBA students on Oct. 31. The goal is simple: make AI fluency a core part of business education, not an elective afterthought.
The concentration spans three areas - AI Fundamentals, AI and Business Models, and AI and Society. Students can pull classes from across campus, including the School of Information and the College of Engineering, which gives them technical range without losing the business context.
Leaders at Ross say employers now expect MBAs to apply AI tools with the same confidence they bring to strategy. Student organizers echo that sentiment: AI has had classroom stigma, but using it well can lift the quality and speed of real work.
Why this matters for educators
This move signals a shift: AI literacy is now table stakes across graduate business education. If you're shaping curricula, academic policy, or career services, here's where to focus.
- Make AI tool use explicit in syllabi: define what's allowed, require disclosure, and assess process as much as outcomes.
- Pair technical depth with managerial judgment: model evaluation, prompt design, data ethics, and business cases in one path.
- Build cross-school pathways: information science and engineering electives that feed back into finance, marketing, and ops.
- Use applied projects with real constraints: messy data, ambiguous goals, and clear rubrics for AI-assisted work.
- Offer faculty upskilling: short clinics on AI tooling, policy templates, and assignment redesign.
If you need ready-to-use course ideas and role-based AI upskilling paths, see this curated catalog of AI learning tracks by job function at Complete AI Training.
How the Ross concentration is structured
- AI Fundamentals: core concepts, methods, and tools.
- AI and Business Models: how AI changes products, pricing, and operations.
- AI and Society: policy, ethics, governance, and risk.
- Cross-campus access: electives from the School of Information and College of Engineering to deepen technical competency.
Campus context: large-scale AI infrastructure on the horizon
The announcement comes as the university explores a $1.2 billion high-performance computing campus in partnership with Los Alamos National Laboratory for AI, national security, and scientific research. Two sites in Ypsilanti Township are under consideration: one near Textile Road east of Bridge Road, and another at a former General Motors location west of Willow Run Airport.
Community groups have raised concerns about water use, energy demand, and environmental impact. Program leaders and campus planners will likely face rising demand for transparency and community engagement as plans develop.
Peer schools are moving too
Michigan Ross joins other top programs updating their offerings this year. Chicago Booth introduced an applied AI concentration for its MBA in July, and Wharton opened options for an AI concentration at the undergraduate level and an MBA major focused on AI for business.
For reference, explore the Ross Full-Time MBA and its academic options at Michigan Ross. The takeaway for educators: build AI literacy into the core, not the periphery, and give students hands-on experience that translates directly to the workplace.
Your membership also unlocks:
