In her LinkedIn profile, Rebecca Hu (MBA 2023) describes herself as a “biologist-turned-technologist obsessed with building great software products.” A product manager at the language learning app Duolingo, Hu immersed herself in electives and activities centered around coding, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) while at HBS. One course she took last year, Five Technologies that Will Change the World, piqued her interest. “It was a great opportunity for me to stay abreast of developments in large language models (LLMs), to study and debate emerging business models in the LLM stack, and have longer discussions around questions related to ethics and governance,” Hu says.

The course, now called Three Technologies that Will Change the World in the Next Decade, is taught by Shikhar Ghosh, the MBA Class of 1961 Professor of Management Practice of Business Administration. It focuses on three recently developed “godlike technologies”—AI, blockchain, and synthetic biology. The goals of the course are to provide students with an understanding of these emerging technologies from the perspective of a business leader and prepare them for a world where technology creates exponential increases in capabilities, forcing practitioners to rethink business models and reassess the commercial and ethical choices they make.

While AI is one of three key topics spotlighted in Ghosh’s course, generative AI (GenAI) takes center stage in a new elective introduced this spring, Generative AI for Business Leaders, taught by Suraj Srinivasan, the Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Business Administration and faculty chair of the MBA Elective Curriculum, and Senior Lecturer Michael Parzen.

Srinivasan’s research on GenAI examines how the technology is redefining the ways in which businesses operate and deliver value. “The course builds on this work to examine critical questions at the heart of this AI-led transformation,” Srinivasan explains. “How will generative AI reshape modern enterprise? What strategies should businesses adopt to integrate this technology effectively? How do businesses use the technology to do work better and faster and how do they use the technology to innovate? And what are the ethical and governance issues to consider?”

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Students need to be able to address these questions, whether they aspire to be corporate innovators driving AI initiatives or entrepreneurs who hope to find opportunities in the ever-evolving AI market. The course provides students a methodology and hands-on engagement with the technology to develop and execute real-world business-use cases—skills that will serve them well in their future careers.

“It’s crucial for HBS to be teaching about these technologies,” says Hu. She notes that Duolingo draws on GenAI both for creating content to help users learn languages and to improve the company’s organizational processes, but adds, “Even if your product doesn’t involve AI, it’s important to be knowledgeable about it as you think critically about the strategy for your company. To be a business leader today, you need to have a fundamental understanding of the advancements shaping our world.”

For HBS and Harvard AI-related resources, please visit alumni.hbs.edu/GenAI-Resources.

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