AI at Dartmouth Tuck: How the School Is Preparing Leaders for the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the latest turning point. Nearly nine out of ten organizations already use AI in at least one business function—yet questions about judgment, responsibility, and when not to rely on technology remain wide open. What sets Tuck apart is not simply access to advanced AI. It is the values and judgment that guide how leaders put it to use. 

Leading in the age of AI requires more than technical expertise. It demands adaptability, curiosity, and integrity—along with the ability to evaluate tradeoffs, interrogate assumptions, and make decisions amid uncertainty. Tomorrow’s leaders will be called on to assess the limits of AI, understand where models can mislead, and apply human judgment when the stakes are high. 

“Tuck endures because Tuck innovates,” says Dean Matthew J. Slaughter. “We are empowering students, faculty, and staff to use AI with confidence, agility, and judgment. As the world continues to evolve, we expect that AI will increase demand for the leadership capabilities that Tuck excels at creating.” 

Tuck was the first business school to secure an agreement with OpenAI for its ChatGPT Edu product and make it available to all students, faculty, and professional staff. As of January 2026, the entire Tuck community also has licensed access to M365 Copilot, amosAI (a customized NebulaONE product) and—thanks to Dartmouth—Anthropic. Faculty also have access to Azure AI Foundry to support large-scale data analysis and research. Tuck’s Career Services has adopted Hiration to help students prepare for interviews in an AI-influenced hiring landscape. From coding workshops and research applications to instructional tools and administrative support, AI is intentionally embedded across the Tuck experience. What matters most is not just access—but how the community learns to use these tools thoughtfully and well.

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LEARNING AND TEACHING:
What Students Need to Know Today about AI 

In the MBA classroom, AI now surfaces across the entire curriculum—appearing in every course through teaching, research, and hands-on learning—with at least 10 electives this academic year devoted specifically to AI. 

Tuck’s electives give students a deep understanding of AI’s role in business and society as well as practical opportunities to apply new tools. These include AI-Driven Analytics and Society, taught by assistant professor James Siderius, a research-to-practice seminar that examines the societal and ethical implications of AI, data-driven decision-making, and governance. Siderius notes that large language models carry inherent bias and misinformation risks, making it essential for students to understand when and why AI may be incorrect. 

“While most debates focus on how algorithms behave, computational governance asks who should control access to the computational power that makes those behaviors possible,” Siderius says. “More compute means more capable models but also more persuasive, personalized, and potentially manipulative systems.” 

Other courses explore ethical and relational dimensions of AI. Mentorship in a Changing World: Human Connections & AI Collaborations, taught by Stacy Blake-Beard, helps students evaluate hybrid mentoring frameworks and navigate the ethical dimensions of AI in leadership development. “AI should serve as a mirror, not a replacement,” she says. “It can illuminate patterns and offer insights, but the meaning-making must remain human.” AI for Managers, taught by visiting professor Dean Alderucci, surveys how AI and large-language models are being deployed across marketing, strategy, operations, and other business functions. 

AI appears even in courses not specifically devoted to it. In Managerial Economics, Senior Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning Joe Hall and Professor Anaïs Galdin introduced custom-built AI tutors—developed by Galdin—to guide students’ case preparation, leading to sharper judgment and more thoughtful classroom discussions. “Everyone needs to be experimenting because it is clearly going to have a huge impact,” Hall says. 

AI also extends beyond the MBA classroom. Tuck Executive Education offers live, online programs that help managers understand how AI is changing competition and value creation. Called executive sprints, recent offerings include AI and Data for Strategic Advantage with Vijay Govindarajan and AI Transformation for Executives with Dean Alderucci.

Participants in the Advanced Management Program can now explore applications of AI through sessions such as AI and Digital Operations with Lauren Lu, Data Analytics for Managers with Geoff Parker, and Digital Transformation with Govindarajan, which examine how artificial intelligence, analytics, and digital platforms are reshaping operations, strategy, and innovation across industries. AI-focused learning also appears in Tuck’s Advancing Entrepreneurship Programs, where participants examine how emerging technologies are influencing venture creation and growth. Upcoming sessions in Next Step introduce AI concepts to veterans and elite athletes preparing for business careers.

AI appears throughout the Tuck Business Bridge Program for undergraduates as well, including courses like AI Applications in Business and AI-Powered Business Tools. Taken together, these courses give early-career learners early exposure to the tools and ideas that are quickly becoming part of everyday business life. 

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FACULTY AND AI IN THE CLASSROOM 

Faculty experimentation extends AI learning beyond coursework and gives students direct exposure to emerging tools. Professors are exploring AI through teaching assistant chatbots, immersive case studies, and custom large-language-model interfaces designed specifically for Tuck courses. In the process, students learn not only how AI works, but how to evaluate its strengths, limits, and ethical implications. 

Professor Gordon Phillips uses an AI teaching bot in Venture Capital and Private Equity, while Raghav Singal incorporates ChatGPT in the Analytics I core course to support model building and visualization. Brian Tomlin and Joe Hall collaborated on a custom ChatGPT interface for a core operations case, enabling students to examine loan-transaction data and test process improvements. Alva Taylor, senior associate dean for executive learning, has written several new AI-themed cases that prompt students to assess the opportunities and risks emerging technologies create within firms. 

Many faculty are also using AI in research, including accessing large datasets through Azure AI Foundry and building custom tools to analyze emerging business domains. These applications allow faculty to bring cutting-edge insights into the classroom as the field evolves. 

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APPLYING AI BEYOND THE CLASSROOM 

Students engage with AI through collaborative projects, First-Year Projects (FYP), Tech Treks, and industry events, often working directly with emerging tools and practitioners. Vibe-coding workshops give students a space to build software using AI tools, no programming background required. 

“When vibe-coding, we encourage students to follow their personal interests,” says Patrick Wheeler, executive director of the Center for Digital Strategies. “If you’re passionate about something, it deeply resonates and becomes a little bit easier to know what questions to ask and what projects to build.”

This hands-on mindset is widely embraced by Lily McCarthy T’26, a Center for Digital Strategies fellow who arrived at Tuck after eight years at Resonance, a direct-to-consumer fashion technology startup. 

McCarthy regularly vibe-codes with her classmates, which allows students to build software not through the old-fashioned way of writing code but by using AI tools. 

During previous vibe-coding sessions, one student used the AI tool Vercel to build an app that would help MBA students prepare for interviews. Another built a web app to visualize and choreograph dance routines so that cheerleading coaches wouldn’t have to spend hours doing in-person, trial-and-error sessions with the entire team. 

McCarthy keeps a list of problems that she thinks AI can help with, and when she has time, she experiments with tools like Lovable, Base 44, or Gemini. 

“I benefited a lot from my prior experience at Resonance before coming to Tuck,” she says. “My boss would always say, ‘It’s not just how you’re going to fix something; it’s what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.’ I think about that a lot, especially with the use of AI. Why are you using AI, and what problem is it solving? If those things come together in an impactful way, then using AI makes sense.”

McCarthy used AI frequently during her FYP with NovaGyn, a women’s health medical device startup founded by Becca Thomson D’20, TH’21. For interview analysis and research, she turned to Perplexity and BTInsights, the AI platform co-founded by Travis Fei T’21.

Another student, Willian Bezerra T’25, delved into the world of AI in his FYP with Engineered Arts, a UK-based designer of AI-powered robots. Bezerra and his team were tasked with identifying potential customers for androids designed for human connection and had the chance to speak and interact with the Engineered Arts android that inspired their project.

FYP was out front doing AI training for students—facilitated with Patrick Wheeler and the Center for Digital Strategies—just a few months after ChatGPT 3.5 came out,” says Joe Hall. “We now have several First-Year Projects that involve AI implementation at companies. 

That’s something that companies are going to be asking for help with probably for the next decade or more.”

McCarthy also traveled to Silicon Valley to participate in the Tech Trek, where she met alumni and industry leaders from big tech companies as well as smaller startups such as Snorkel AI.
“That was one of my favorite experiences of my first year at Tuck—not only did we meet with interesting tech companies, but I also got to know my fellow classmates who were curious about tech,” she said. “We still get together regularly and have conversations about what’s happening in the industry.”

Students also learn about AI by attending events like the Dartmouth AI Conference in Silicon Valley, led by Tuck's Center for Digital Strategies, whether they attend in person or virtually. “It’s an applied conference,” Wheeler notes. “We invite business practitioners to talk about what’s happening on the ground, in the real world, and where AI is headed.”

In addition, Global Insight Expeditions give students the chance to travel to far-flung places and develop cultural awareness while learning about AI in context. Each course starts with classroom sessions on campus, and then students travel with faculty members to engage with corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, government officials, and local people from all walks of life. 

Ashwin Chandrasekhar joined Professor Lauren Lu for AI and Data-Driven Innovation in the Chinese Economy and had the opportunity to collaborate with multimedia company Tencent. “Our visit confirmed that China is on a unique trajectory in Artificial Intelligence,” he said. “There is much to learn, understand, and share to ensure that this technology benefits those who need it most.”

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THE FUTURE OF AI 

Numerous industries are ripe for AI-driven change, and leaders across the Tuck community are already helping shape its direction in fields such as financial services, manufacturing, and health care. 

At the Dartmouth AI Conference, panelist Julie Skaff T’08, COO of Centaur.ai, described how AI is transforming diagnostics, patient engagement, and care delivery. She noted that AI has the potential to help address critical issues in healthcare systems facing an aging population and a shortage of providers. “We’re facing an aging population and a shortage of providers,” Skaff says. “AI is going to be a critical part of bridging that gap.” 

Looking ahead, Bradley Webb T'16, COO of SurgeAI, emphasizes trust and evaluation. He believes that in the next several years, companies will shift from experimenting with new applications toward building frameworks that determine whether an AI solution performs reliably and deserves investment. “In the short term, that might make AI seem less useful than the hype suggests, but widespread adoption will require more work and investment,” he says. 

Beyond business value, AI has the potential to address complex global challenges. “We have big problems we never thought we would be able to solve in our lifetime: hunger, famine, pollution,” Taylor says. "As AI progresses, it is going to be able to help solve these problems, and that is what I’m hoping for.”

As AI accelerates disruption across industries, foundational elements of leadership become more essential than ever, including judgment, ethics, and human connection. Leaders will increasingly be asked not only how to use AI, but when and why. 

“Artificial intelligence continues to advance, and we will continue to innovate in ways that prepare leaders to bring judgment, agility, and discernment to its use,” Dean Slaughter says. “AI isn’t replacing the need for wise, decisive leadership. It is amplifying it.”

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FACULTY REFLECT ON AI