First AI-Native Core MBA Course at Harvard
Harvard Business School has introduced a new course to its required curriculum, which may signal the future of MBA education. Designed to prepare students for a business world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, all 935 first-year MBA students will take the Data Science and AI for Leaders (DSAIL) course.
What sets DSAIL apart isn’t just its content but also its delivery. It’s AI-native and infused with intelligent agents that support real-time learning and hands-on data exploration. This bold move reflects a growing consensus in the business and academic communities. Namely, future leaders need to understand more than just strategy and operations—they need to understand AI.
“If the 20th century was defined by the MBA wielding Excel, this century will be defined by MBAs working hand-in-hand with AI agents,” wrote HBS professor Marco Iansiti in a recent Substack post introducing the course. “Reimagining organizations, business models, and operating models from the ground up.”
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Why Now?
AI breakthroughs are becoming the beating heart of competitive strategy. Generative AI, machine learning, and large language models are already transforming how companies make decisions, design products, and structure teams. “Even for organizations that haven’t traditionally thought of themselves as ‘tech’ companies,” Iansiti notes, “AI’s potential to transform business models is enormous.”
That urgency inspired Iansiti and co-lead Professor Iavor Bojinov to create DSAIL from scratch, backed by a sprint-mode collaboration with the HBS Digital Data Design Institute and technology partner Julius.ai. It’s a timely addition to the growing conversation around the role of AI in MBA curriculum design across top business schools.
What Makes DSAIL Different: A New Approach to AI in MBA Curriculum
The course structure covers four core modules, starting with today’s AI landscape and culminating in students designing and deploying their AI agents. But what makes DSAIL genuinely different is how it integrates AI into the learning process itself.
Two tools, built specifically for the course, give students hands-on access to advanced capabilities:
DSAIL Tutor Bot: An on-demand, RAG-based AI assistant trained on the course’s entire content library—including HBS cases, econometrics texts, and Iansiti’s own research. It’s available 24/7 for students to ask questions, revisit concepts, and explore deeper topics. This is a professor’s assistant who never sleeps.
Julius.ai: A no-code data science agent that lets students run regressions, analyze customer segments, and visualize data—all by typing natural language prompts. “The real focus,” says Iansiti, “is on business insight, not syntax.”
These AI “co-pilots” remove friction from the learning process and emphasize strategic thinking. Students will no longer get bogged down in Python or R syntax. Instead, they can focus on the decisions that data enables.
Teaching MBAs to Think—and Lead—Differently
The course is grounded in real-world cases, many of which were explicitly developed for this curriculum. Students examine how companies like Moderna use AI in product development, explore causal inference and hypothesis testing through business data, and confront ethical dilemmas surrounding bias and privacy in machine learning models.
This new HBS course is not about chasing the hype. It’s about equipping leaders to navigate—and shape—what comes next.
“AI isn’t a bolt-on feature,” Iansiti explains. “It changes how products get built, how data flows, how we learn from customers, and how we generate revenue.” DSAIL aims to give MBAs fluency in this new language of business—and the confidence to lead with it.
A New Standard for MBA Education?
DSAIL may set a precedent for other business schools grappling with how to modernize their core curriculum. Most programs still treat AI and data science as electives, often buried under technical jargon or siloed in analytics tracks. HBS, by contrast, has put AI in the MBA curriculum front and center, making it part of the shared experience that defines the first-year MBA journey.
Importantly, the course doesn’t assume students are technical experts. Its design reflects a broader principle: that business leaders must understand what AI can do, how to integrate it responsibly, and where it can create the most value. Even if they never write a line of code.
“Ultimately,” Iansiti writes, “an MBA in 2025 and beyond should feel at home working alongside AI agents—just as comfortable as previous generations were navigating Excel spreadsheets.”
Redefining What Every MBA Must Know
Business is at an inflection point. The rise of AI is changing how firms operate—and how leaders must think. HBS’s new required course represents more than a curriculum update. It’s a clear signal that the skills and mindsets that once defined elite MBA programs are evolving fast.
Courses like DSAIL go far beyond teaching the mechanics of AI. They challenge students to ask the more significant questions. For example, what kind of leader will I be in a world shaped by machines? How do we build AI systems that are not only effective but also ethical? And how do we ensure that business innovation serves people—not just profits?
These are the questions this course asks students to wrestle with—and why, in our view, it couldn’t have arrived at a better time.
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Ashley
Ashley is a former MBA Admissions Board Member for Harvard Business School (HBS), where she interviewed and evaluated thousands of business school applicants for over a six year tenure. Ashley holds an MBA from HBS. During her HBS years, Ashley was the Sports Editor for the Harbus and a member of the B-School Blades Ice Hockey Team. After HBS, she worked in Marketing at the Gillette Company on Male and Female shaving ...
×Pauline
A former associate director of admissions at Harvard Business School, Pauline served on the HBS MBA Admissions Board full-time for four years. She evaluated and interviewed HBS applicants, both on-campus and globally. Pauline's career has included sales and marketing management roles with Coca-Cola, Gillette, Procter & Gamble, and IBM. For over 10 years, Pauline has expertly guided MBA applicants, and her clients h ...
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Laura comes from the MBA Admissions Board at Harvard Business School (HBS) and is an HBS MBA alumnus. In her HBS Admissions role, she evaluated and interviewed hundreds of business school candidates, including internationals, women, military and other applicant pools, for five years. Prior to her time as a student at HBS, Laura began her career in advertising and marketing in Chicago at Leo Burnett where she worked on th ...
×Andrea
Andrea served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at Harvard Business School (HBS) for over five years. In this role, she provided strategic direction for student yield-management activities and also served as a full member of the admissions committee. In 2007, Andrea launched the new 2+2 Program at Harvard Business School – a program targeted at college junior applicants to Harvard Business School. Andrea has also served as a Career Coach for Harvard Business School for both cu ...
×Jennifer
Jennifer served as Admissions Officer at the Stanford (GSB) for five years. She holds an MBA from Stanford (GSB) and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Jennifer has over 15 years experience in guiding applicants through the increasingly competitive admissions process into top MBA programs. Having read thousands and thousands of essays and applications while at Stanford (GSB) Admiss ...
×Erin K.
Erin served in key roles in MBA Admissions--as Director at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and Assistant Director at Stanford's Graduate School of Business (GSB). Erin served on the admissions committee at each school and has read thousands of applications in her career. At Haas, she served for seven years in roles that encompassed evaluation, outreach, and diversity and inclusion. During her tenure in Admissions at GSB, she was responsible for candidate evaluation, applicant outreach, ...
×Susie
Susie comes from the Admissions Office of the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she reviewed and evaluated hundreds of prospective students’ applications. She holds an MBA from Stanford’s GSB and a BA from Stanford in Economics. Prior to advising MBA applicants, Susie held a variety of roles over a 15-year period in capital markets, finance, and real estate, including as partner in one of the nation’s most innovative finance and real estate investment organizations. In that r ...
×Dione
Dione holds an MBA degree from Stanford Business School (GSB) and a BA degree from Stanford University, where she double majored in Economics and Communication with concentrations in journalism and sociology. Dione has served as an Admissions reader and member of the Minority Admissions Advisory Committee at Stanford. Dione is an accomplished and respected advocate and thought leader on education and diversity. She is ...
×Anthony
Anthony served as the Associate Director of MBA Admissions at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he dedicated over 10 years of expertise. During his time as a Wharton Admissions Officer, he read and reviewed thousands of applications and helped bring in a class of 800+ students a year. Anthony has traveled both domestically and internationally to recruit a ...
×Meghan
Meghan served as the Associate Director of Admissions and Marketing at the Wharton MBA’s Lauder Institute, a joint degree program combining the Wharton MBA with an MA in International Studies. In her role on the Wharton MBA admissions committee, Meghan advised domestic and international applicants; conducted interviews and information sessions domestically and overseas in Asia, Central and South America, and Europe; and evaluated applicants for admission to the program. Meghan also managed ...
×Amy
Amy comes from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where she was Associate Director. Amy devoted 12 years at the Wharton School, working closely with MBA students and supporting the admissions team. During her tenure at Wharton, Amy served as a trusted adviser to prospective applicants as well as admitted and matriculated students. She conducted admissions chats with applicants early in the admissions ...
×Ally
Ally brings six years of admissions experience to the SBC team, most recently as an Assistant Director of Admission for the full-time MBA program at Columbia Business School (CBS). During her time at Columbia, Ally was responsible for reviewing applications, planning recruitment events, and interviewing candidates for both the full-time MBA program and the Executive MBA program. She traveled both internationally and dome ...
×Erin B.
Erin has over seven years of experience working across major institutions, including University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Business School, and NYU's Stern School of Business. At Columbia Business School, Erin was an Assistant Director of Admissions where she evaluated applications for both the full time and executive MBA programs, sat on the admissions and merit scholarship committees and advised applicants on which program might be the best fit for them based on their work experience and pro ...
×Emma
Emma comes from the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School (CBS), where she was Associate Director. Emma conducted dozens of interviews each cycle for the MBA and EMBA programs, as well as coordinating the alumni ambassador interview program. She read and evaluated hundreds of applications each cycle, delivered information sessions to audiences across the globe, and advised countless waitlisted applicants. ×
Kate
Kate served in the MBA Admissions Office at Columbia Business School for over five years. In her capacity as an Associate Director, Kate advised applicants daily and reviewed hundreds of applications per cycle. She was also an applicant interviewer, a liaison to other offices within the School, and a CBS representative at events around the world. Kate managed several recruiting and operational projects for the Admissions Committee. After Columbia Business School, Kate transitioned into cam ...
×Holly
Holly worked as a member of the NYU Stern MBA Admissions team for seven years and holds an MBA from NYU Stern. In her tenure as Director of NYU MBA Admissions, Holly worked closely with admissions teams from Columbia, Michigan Ross, UVA Darden, Cornell Johnson, Berkeley Haas, Yale SOM, and Duke Fuqua on recruiting events domestically and internationally. On the NYU Stern admissions committee, Holly conducted interviews, planned and hosted events, and trained staff on reading and interviewi ...
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