AI is transforming how businesses operate, how work gets done, and what employers expect from MBA talent. In a conversation with Economics Professor Brett House and Associate Dean for Career Management Gracy Sarkissian, we explore labor market trends, the rise of AI fluency as a baseline skill, and how MBA students can prepare for both today’s opportunities and tomorrow’s unknown roles.
Question: How is AI reshaping business, labor markets, and economic growth and what does this mean for MBA talent demand over the next several years?
Brett: US labor markets are experiencing several concurrent waves of change and it’s important to distinguish which of these developments reflect the advance of AI and which are by-products of broader cyclical economic ebbs and flows.
The US economy has been gradually cooling from the torrid growth that accompanied the relaxation a few years ago of COVID-19-related public-health restrictions and protocols. This is all part of the usual normalization that tends to follow big economic disruptions. This rebalancing has been particularly focused in tech, consulting, and finance, where hiring during the pandemic was pronounced and these sectors are still re-setting their workforces to pre-COVID trends. This trio is also seeing some churn as organizations reallocate resources from moving business online to integrating AI in their processes. But even where the impact of AI is most obvious, such as in sectors where vibe coding is becoming ubiquitous, we’re still seeing strong demand for people with solid computer-science skills.
The US economy’s cyclical cooling has been intensified by the needless trade war and erratic policy making implemented by the White House over the last year. Across the economy, the US has experienced a net loss of jobs since April 2025’s so-called “Liberation Day”. Healthcare has been the only bright spot in the US jobs market.
So far, we don’t see AI driving major gains in US productivity at the economy-wide level even if it is creating some efficiencies within individual organizations and sectors. We don’t yet have clear evidence that AI is driving widespread layoffs, but there are some indications that it is slowing hiring decisions as companies become more cautious in making commitments to replace workers or add to headcounts.
Gracy: From a career perspective, AI is shaping employer expectations. While market trends influence hiring, what we consistently hear from employers is that AI fluency is now a baseline skill for our graduates.
Employers expect MBAs to display AI competency in their day-to-day work, whether analyzing data, informing decisions, or improving efficiency. It’s no longer a specialized tool but a standard part of how work gets done across industries.
At the same time, the expansion of AI across organizations highlights the value of core MBA skills. Graduates need to translate AI-driven insights into business decisions, exercise sound judgment, and communicate clearly across teams. They must show they can lead change, influence stakeholders, and apply AI responsibly in real-world contexts. Our goal is to ensure students graduate ready to lead AI implementation across industries and organizations while leveraging the uniquely human skills that create impact and drive long-term career growth.
Question: As AI becomes embedded in business decisions, where do MBAs add the most value and how can students prepare to do so during their time at CBS?
Gracy: We prepare students for leadership roles by focusing on where MBAs add value beyond technology, such as shaping the right questions, structuring complex problems, and making decisions in ambiguous, high-stakes environments, both in and out of the classroom.
At the Career Management Center, our workshops, advising, and employer-led programming emphasize applying AI in real business settings and linking technical capability to strategic priorities and organizational outcomes. We connect students with industry leaders and practitioners to provide insight into how roles are evolving and how leadership expectations are shifting.
We also work closely with students to help them articulate these experiences, drawing on coursework, internships, and projects to show how they have leveraged AI in practical contexts, navigated trade-offs, and contributed to business impact, while understanding governance challenges.
Brett: The arrival of AI, like earlier waves of new general-purpose technologies, puts an added premium in labor markets and in careers on adaptability, the capacity to synthesize wide-ranging ideas, good judgment in managing people and resources, strong communication, and flexible strategic planning, which are all skills in which our MBA graduates excel. For leaders, these qualities have always been in demand, which makes smart responses to AI similar to the actions taken over the last sixty years by top performers to manage their progress through the arrival of computers, the rise of the internet, and the spread of globalization. It’s tempting to see AI as a wholly unprecedented phenomenon, but it’s not: economic history doesn’t repeat, but it certainly does rhyme.
Through these past waves of technological advance, MBA graduates have had to find an evolving balance between acquiring enough technical skills to understand organically the nature of the changes underway, while also prioritizing the skills needed to lead and manage these changes. Finding this balance will be a constant challenge that won’t get settled here in the MBA program nor after graduation in the job market.
Question: Which roles/industries are changing most because of AI, and what new opportunities are emerging that students should be positioning themselves for now?
Brett: AI is most quickly transforming roles that typical MBA graduates aren’t looking to fill: jobs that feature routine tasks, basic data processing, and low-value content creation. Financial analyst jobs are probably the main area of MBA interest that is seeing early impact from the integration of AI in daily work streams. Demand for MBA graduates is set to grow in realms that require high-level human judgment, relationship building, people management, good communication, and creative empathy.
Since 2022, we’ve seen demand for jobs centered on creative, technical, and analytical skills grow through their augmentation by AI, not their automation. In these areas, AI-human collaboration is driving demand for more, not fewer, jobs. Mid-level financial analysts, investment managers, and M&A team leaders are all using AI-supported tools to underpin, not replace, their decision making.
Academia isn’t isolated from these changes. We’re seeing some initial signs that AI is allowing researchers to take on more work, widen their scope of activities, and hire more research assistants and project managers to execute on their lines of inquiry. Faculty members are meeting pressures to do more with the implementation of the means to do so.
Gracy: As Brett mentioned, we’re seeing change across every industry, but more importantly, roles are evolving faster than new ones are being clearly defined. We don’t know exactly what future roles will be, so our focus is on equipping students with the skills and mindset to adapt.
At CBS, we stay closely connected to employers and these relationships impact how we prepare students. We help them develop both practical AI fluency, using these tools in their job search, and an understanding of how AI and other market conditions might impact their industries, so they can anticipate change, make informed decisions, and position themselves effectively as opportunities emerge.
Ultimately, it’s less about targeting one specific role and more about being ready to grow with the market. Our support continues after graduation through the lifelong CBS network, allowing students and alumni to access guidance, stay connected to opportunities, and navigate what’s next as their careers evolve.
