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How business schools can win in the AI economy
3 November 2025
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How business schools can win in the AI economy
Rankings and research still matter, but growth will accrue at business schools that prove employability at the skill level – that was the message of a recent QS-led webinar featuring Nunzio Quacquarelli, President and Chair of the Board, Leigh Kamolins, Director, Analytics and Evaluation, and Chris Taylor, Client Partnership Director, UK.
Three insights leaders can act on now
- Employability is the metric that knits a business school’s narrative together. Nunzio Quacquarelli’s thesis: “The future is about knowledge, research, and skills.” If your curricula don’t name, teach, and verify skills employers hire for, reputation will drift away from you - even if academic reputation is high.
- AI is more augmentation than elimination. QS Labour Market Modelling shows that 8.7m workers have a high to very high AI augmentation potential. This means work-integrated learning and assessments should begin to use AI and encourage its ethical usage to ensure their graduates are not left behind.
- “Business schools need to get serious about aligning curricula to in-demand skills,” Quacquarelli asserted. Using 1Mentor by QS data, he evidenced the mismatch in skills Business Analytics programmes nurture, and the skills that employers are seeking in their job postings. Understanding employer needs, and adapting curricula will be key as students are increasingly driven by return on investment.
