Patrick Johans, a business analytics professor at the University of Iowa, has published a new textbook with McGraw-Hill titled “AI in Business: Responsible Value Creation.”
This book will be used in courses to prepare students for the ever-changing field of business as artificial intelligence rises.
Johans’ book, published in January, focuses on the ethical use and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in business. Johans is also currently developing an innovative course covering artificial intelligence for UI in business.
According to Johans, the process began when he was tasked by Dean Tippie’s office to add AI lessons to the Business Analytics Fundamentals course. Realizing that no existing curriculum existed, Johans decided to create his own.
According to an October 2025 report from Pew Research Center, 21% of workers say they use AI in their jobs, a 5% increase from 2024.
Global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company revealed in its 2025 AI survey that 62 percent of respondents said their organizations were experimenting with AI agents.
The report notes that most organizations are still in the early stages of AI adoption.
Johans, a native of Osage, Iowa, received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the UI. He has been with the university since 2014 and previously served on the Purdue faculty from 2003 to 2014.
In 2017, he founded Johanns Laser LLC, a North Liberty-based company that designs and manufactures laser-cut and etched items.
After writing two chapters, he tried to see if he could add it to his textbook, but he had trouble finding anyone to buy it, so he kept writing.
“Then Christmas break came and I kept writing, and after Christmas break I realized I had almost finished the book, and it was a matter of finding a publisher for the whole book,” Johans said.
The completed textbook had 8 chapters and 254 pages.
Johans recalled being interviewed by Purdue University’s student newspaper, the Purdue Exponent. In 2008, while teaching at Purdue University, Johanns drew the attention of campus reporters when he wrote his own textbook as an affordable alternative for business students.
The Purdue Exponent article, titled “Teachers Help Cut Textbook Costs,” was originally planned to be buried deep in the newspaper, Johans said. However, the article ended up on the front page.
Johans said the demand for AI lessons in his classes comes from the job market, with employers now looking for college graduates skilled in AI. So he wanted to make sure his students had these skills.
“Instead of saying, ‘No, you should never use it,’ it’s better to teach kids how to use it responsibly,” Johans says.
Johans said the book was originally intended to focus on the role of AI in business. However, after many discussions with the people on the Business Analytics Advisory Board, and seeing how pervasive ethical issues are, we decided to include lessons on ethics. In every chapter.
His books include lessons on business and personal ethics. On the business side, he said the book delved into the issue of training employees to use AI and firing employees for AI reasons.
On the personal front, I mentioned how AI can create convincing deepfake videos, and the many ethical concerns therein. He also said the book teaches students how well artificial intelligence can answer questions.
“Generative AI is more focused on generating an answer than on whether the answer is correct,” Johans says.
For this reason, Johans said it is always important to fact-check the sources of information that artificial intelligence uses to generate answers to users’ prompts, otherwise users are likely to use false and misleading information and undermine their critical thinking skills.
Addressing larger ethical concerns about generative artificial intelligence, particularly its impact on the environment, Johans said its use on an individual level does not cause significant harm to the environment.
Rather, Johans said the main concern is with companies that use artificial intelligence for fraud detection, marketing and data analysis.
He also cited concerns about artificial intelligence being used for defense and war decision-making.
“When we talk about war, it should be an ethical and moral decision, and we shouldn’t leave that decision-making to computers,” Johans says.
He mentioned Anthropic, an AI safety and research company that recently decided to deny the U.S. military’s request for unrestricted access to Anthropic’s artificial intelligence. Model Claude. This decision places Anthropic in the supply chain risk category.
“I respect that attitude of them,” Johans said.
Following this decision, Claude became the most popular app on Apple’s iPhone App Store, stealing that title from ChatGPT. At the same time, ChatGPT reportedly lost 1.5 million users after parent company OpenAI signed a contract allowing the Department of Defense to use ChatGPT in classified operations.
The backlash forced OpenAI to review its contract with the Department of Defense, saying in a post that its AI models would not be used for mass surveillance, directing autonomous weapons, or making high-stakes automatic decisions.
Johans said he included references to AI in the book, but mostly avoided the topic because it is appropriate for an ethics textbook. Instead, Johans wanted to focus strictly on training the next generation of business leaders to use artificial intelligence responsibly.
Brooks Butcher, a third-year UI student studying entrepreneurship and a student of Johanns, learned of his professor’s new book at the beginning of the semester.
“The first week he talked about it and how it was going to come to fruition,” Butcher said.
Mr Butcher said he was excited to see books like Johans’s being introduced into the curriculum and said the increasing relevance of AI in higher education and the job market makes it important to incorporate AI into post-secondary education.
“Honestly, I think this is a great idea,” Butcher said. “Learning more about it is definitely an important factor in the university world.”
Jack Fells, a second-year finance and accounting student at UI, has training in artificial intelligence and likes the idea of teaching students how to use it because there is a fine line between ethical and unethical implementation.
“While they can be very useful for studying, organizing your thoughts, and getting guidance on assignments, they should not be used to cheat,” Fells says.
Fels wasn’t aware of Johann’s new book, but he had received AI training in a class called “Business Communication and Professionalism” at Tippy College of Business.
“I think BCAP was pretty helpful to me because I was able to organize my thoughts using AI, but I couldn’t just copy and paste,” Fels said. “So I think it can be ethical if used appropriately.”
Johans said his opinions and habits regarding artificial intelligence have changed since he wrote the book.
“I had never used generative AI before I was asked to add AI materials, but now I use it every day,” Johans says.
