Can Technology Inherit Values?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just an industry buzzword; it’s a generational inflection point. For family enterprises, which have long defined success through stewardship, continuity, and trust, AI poses a paradox: it challenges the deeply human foundations on which these businesses stand while simultaneously offering tools to strengthen them.
Across sectors, AI is reshaping how decisions are made, how knowledge is shared, and how relationships are maintained. Yet for families in business, its meaning goes beyond productivity gains. The deeper question is this: can technology inherit values?
Recent studies show that family firms are entering what we might call the “Generation AI” phase: where innovation and stewardship must coexist. Unlike short-term disruptors, family enterprises think across decades, making them uniquely positioned to integrate AI with responsibility and relational awareness.
Walmart, the world’s largest family-controlled company, offers a glimpse into that future. Donna Morris, Walmart’s Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer recently reflected on how generative AI is transforming the way 2.1 million associates learn, collaborate, and serve customers. “We are people-led and tech-powered,” she said, a phrase that perfectly captures the paradox of our time: in an age of intelligent machines, human leadership still defines the difference between continuity and disruption. Her example shows that family-led firms can harness AI to deepen, not dilute, their human and values-driven core.
Research Connection
Academic research on AI in family enterprises has moved from theory to urgency. Across studies, three clear insights emerge: family businesses are behind in adoption, their unique structure makes integration harder, but also potentially more effective and ethical when done right.
A 2025 global review of over 100 studies (Atienza-Barba et al.) found that AI adoption in family firms has surged only in the last five years, revealing a clear tension between protecting the past and investing in the future. Many families approach AI cautiously, fearing that automation could erode their values or the family’s role in decision-making. Yet researchers warn that “overprotecting legacy” can itself become a risk, locking families into old habits rather than preserving what truly matters.
Meanwhile, Kumar and Ratten’s systematic review reframes AI as a new form of capital, one that, like human or social capital, requires investment, learning, and trust. Their message is straightforward: AI isn’t a plug-and-play technology. It’s a capability families must cultivate over time, with the same care they give to people and governance. The firms that will benefit most are those that treat AI not as a replacement for judgment but as an amplifier of human and family strengths, clarity, intuition, and purpose.
Finally, Lannon, Lyons, and O’Connor introduce the idea of “Gen AI successors” next-generation members who will inherit not just assets, but intelligent systems. Their research shows that children of entrepreneurs already use AI tools more confidently and creatively than their peers. Yet, success depends on what happens next: will families channel that curiosity into shared learning, or let generational divides deepen? They argue that the flow of knowledge now needs to go both ways: from parents teaching values, to children teaching the tools that will sustain them.
Together, these studies offer a call to action. For senior generations, the invitation is to stay curious and invest in digital literacy as seriously as you invest in governance or education. For younger generations, the challenge is to anchor innovation in empathy and responsibility. For both, the message is simple: AI isn’t something to buy; it’s something to build, together.
If family enterprises invest now in building shared understanding, training, and experimentation around AI, they are not just adopting technology; they are future-proofing the very continuity they care most about.
The question for families is no longer “Should we use AI?” but “How can we use it in a way that strengthens our purpose and our relationships?”
And this is exactly where Columbia Business School’s new course, AI in the Family Firm comes in. Co-taught by Marc De Kuyper and Gaia Marchisio, the class translates this body of research into practice. It helps next-generation owners and family leaders design AI strategies rooted in family values, governance, and trust. Rather than focusing on coding or tools, it teaches students to surface opportunities, evaluate readiness, design “small-t” transformations, and build intergenerational alignment around innovation.
In other words, it answers the research’s call to action: to make AI adoption a shared learning journey, one that preserves what families have always done best, connecting purpose to progress, and legacy to leadership.
Reflection Questions
- Continuity and Change: What parts of your family’s legacy could be strengthened, not diluted, by technology?
- Learning Loops: In your family, who teaches whom? How might curiosity flow both upward and downward across generations?
- Trust and Transparency: How do you ensure that AI decisions in your business remain accountable to human and family values?
- Investment Mindset: If AI is a new form of family capital, what skills, governance practices, or experiments should you start funding now?
- Future Stewardship: When your successors inherit both data and values, what do you want them to understand about using intelligence, human or artificial, wisely?
For families that think in generations, technology is not just a disruptor, it is a new language for continuity. As the frontier of “Generation AI” unfolds, the challenge for family leaders is to ensure that intelligence, whether artificial or human, remains guided by wisdom.