Artificial intelligence is popping up everywhere these days, including in business degrees.
The University of Pennsylvania has made several announcements about AI education this year, with the most recent coming from the school's business school.
Late last year, Wharton unveiled a new AI-focused strategy to help students across all disciplines access and use AI, according to Eric Bradlow, Wharton's associate dean for AI and analytics.
“We are all in it. [for] “It's all about artificial intelligence and data science,” Bradlaugh told Technical.ly.
For example, companies are using AI to summarize data and write code to communicate information more concisely. Other departments, such as sales, research, HR, and services, are implementing large-scale language models to create drafts, build chatbots, and make predictions. According to a report by trend tracker Exploding Topics, 35% of companies worldwide are already using AI, and half plan to incorporate AI into their operations this year.
We knew that AI would play a big role in the company's efforts going forward.Eric Bradlaugh Wharton
This is all part of the Wharton AI and Analytics Initiative.
The program also includes a partnership with OpenAI to offer ChatGPT enterprise licenses to MBA students this fall, as well as two new funds to support AI education: the AI Research Fund and the Education Innovation Fund. Other features include experiential learning opportunities with companies, AI hackathons, short courses, certification programs, and job fairs.
Based on recent AI activities at the University of Pennsylvania
AI programming is not new to Wharton or its parent university.
The University of Pennsylvania announced a number of related programs last year, including an undergraduate AI degree in its School of Engineering and Applied Science and an online master's in AI.
Wharton's Center for Analytics Research also has a program called AI at Wharton, which hosts conferences and a free webinar series called AI Horizons. As data science and AI become more integrated into every field, students need to be prepared when they enter the workforce, Bradlaugh said.
“We knew that AI was going to be a big part of what companies do in the future,” Bradlow says. “We've been doing research here at Wharton for a long time on video data, text data, and other so-called non-numerical data.”
Bradlaugh said the school places a premium on hands-on learning opportunities and connections between students and companies to help students understand how AI and data are being applied in the business world.
A key focus for many Philadelphia schools
The University of Pennsylvania isn't the only Philadelphia-area school incorporating AI and data science into its business curriculum.
Temple University is home to the Global Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Business Analytics, while Drexel University is home to the Center for Applied AI and Business Analytics.
Internally, Wharton hopes to collaborate with other schools at the University of Pennsylvania to provide AI training to teachers, for example through the Graduate School of Education. Additionally, Wharton AI has begun a healthcare analytics project in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine, conducting randomized trials and experiments.
For now, students aren't required to take classes in AI, but Wharton plans to launch a course called “Everything You Need to Know About AI” during the 2024-2025 academic year, and will offer an AI major at both the undergraduate and graduate levels the following year.
“All students, regardless of major or course, will be exposed to this field,” Bradlaugh said.
Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, a Ground Truth Project initiative that connects early career journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
Company: University of Pennsylvania / Wharton School
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