Yale SOM Introduces New AI-Focused Required Course and Expanded Core Content

Tauhid Zaman, associate professor of operations management, will teach the new core course. Zaman, who has offered an AI-focused elective for the last two years, says he has seen how the technology can empower business students. “Our students have incredible, creative ideas,” he said. “They want to accomplish big things; they’re thinking broadly about business and society. AI gives them the power to create an app or a business or a new process that can bring to life what they’ve envisioned quickly, accurately, and cheaply. For me, it’s a Promethean moment.”

Outside the classroom, Yale SOM continues to be a hub for rich discussions of how AI is changing work and culture. During the spring 2026 semester, more than 40 talks, forums, seminars, panels, and other events engaged with AI. The third annual Responsible AI in Global Business conference brought hundreds of participants to campus; the student-run conference has become one of the keystone events in the academic year.

Meanwhile, faculty are leveraging AI in the classroom and in their research. An informal discussion group in which faculty members share ideas and best practices has grown rapidly. Participants have built AI agents that help answer student questions about assignments, deepen student discussions of case studies, and find material to enrich class sessions. Others use it to sharpen research ideas.

The impact of AI on industries, organizations, and culture is a major theme of faculty research. Recent studies have looked at how to train AI to perform better and more responsibly, whether AI can accelerate academic research, and where and when AI agents outperform humans.

Sang Kim, professor of operations management and senior associate dean for centers and executive programs, led the faculty committee that proposed the new AI course. He said that the growing expertise of the Yale SOM faculty will benefit students across the school’s programs. “It is essential that our students graduate being comfortable using these tools in their professional roles,” said Kim. “We are being responsive to student and employer demand in that respect. But we also think it’s crucial that SOM graduates think broadly and critically about how AI tools can help them improve their businesses and improve the world.”

Anjani Jain, deputy dean for academic programs and professor in the practice of management, said that he’s confident the new AI material in the core will help students use the technology more capably and more responsibly. “The thoughtful inclusion of AI content throughout our core demonstrates our faculty’s commitment to keeping the school at the frontier of understanding. But notwithstanding my enthusiasm for the technology, I believe that you still can’t outsource judgment. Our approach to AI is not solely about the technology but also about how our students can utilize it in managerial decision-making to attain the best outcomes for themselves and for society.”