The role of business talents in the world of artificial intelligence was discussed at the university

12:19, November 17, 2023

Report from the plenary discussion of the RRFP conference

The main event of the first day of the international conference “Russian Regions in the Focus of Changes” was the plenary discussion “AI impact on academic training of global business talent.” Deans of partner business schools (India, China, Malaysia, Morocco, Russia, Sri Lanka) and business representatives discussed the impact of end-to-end technologies on the quality of talent training.

Director of GSEM UrFU Dmitry Tolmachev presented projects of the new GSEM campus in Novokoltsovsky, which is designed to combine digital formats for the work of students and researchers in the digital environment. A geoportal developed by GSEM researchers is already functioning today, which allows assessing human well-being on the basis of arrays of qualitative objective and subjective data. Thus, infrastructure projects form a "smart environment" in a "smart campus" and allow the formation of a "smart ecosystem" for business and the international community.

Sergey Myasoedov, professor, vice-rector and Business School Dean of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) assessed the balanced use of GPT in business education, noting that today it is necessary to analyze data generated by neural networks with human wisdom.

Andrey Anfinogenov, dean of the Faculty of Technological Management and Innovations, ITMO shared experimental data on the implementation of neural networks in project and educational activities, which leads to a reduction in traditional types of research work on diplomas and increases the efficiency of market results of project teams.

Benedict Weerasena, Research Director, Bait Al Amanah, emphasized that in no case should machines be given the right to control people rather the opposite — people should learn how to effectively use the advantages of AI speed.

“Many students are already born with the knowledge of using digital technologies, but professors were born in a different era,” said Benedict Weerasena. “$16 billion will be added to global GDP only through the use of AI, while the demand for creative thinking will only increase as an advantage in the world of neural connections.”

Dean of the National Institute of Business and Management (Sri Lanka) Kolita Ranawaka highlighted the problem of emerging markets: digital inequality in the era of artificial intelligence is a big problem for business talents. It is important that all members of the community are integrated with AI, but this requires investment in infrastructure and digital literacy of the population. The return on such investments is not transparent.

According to Sergey Roshchin, vice-rector of National Research University Higher School of Economics, in order to meet current development trends and business needs, it is important to maintain a balance. The university will not be able to create its own GPT models, which means that this is a fundamental issue of cooperation with industrial partners. At the same time, investments in AI models for business education will pay off in two to three years.

Saad Laraqui, professor, director of Research, ESCA business school, believes that AI will revolutionize the effectiveness of predictive research and identifying accurate trends for the real sector of the economy.

The head of educational projects at Kontur, Elena Rybinskaya, emphasized that in order to form new thinking among employees, identify new talents and get the maximum benefit from collaboration, companies cooperate with business schools and create educational products together, while traditional education formats with a long training cycle remain in demand. Thus, the company is a partner of the Business Informatics program of GSEM UrFU, as well as a number of other university projects.

“Over the past 30 years of digital industry development, we have made significant improvements in virtual synchronous and asynchronous digital programs,” says Lyu Kangjuan, dean of the Shanghai University Business School. — This will become a platform for our cooperation with GSEM. Unfortunately, in the real sector, AI is driving digital and economic inequality.”

Larisa Bogdanova, president of ARAU association (Urals Recruiting Agency Association) shared the secrets of preparing students for analytical work. The profession of business analyst is extremely popular; more than 3 million positions are open in the field of financial, economic, and business analytics in Russia. But soft digital skills are extremely necessary and relevant: visualization, presentation.

“Taking into account the expected volume of the AI market at 60 billion US dollars by 2025 and the dynamics of the opening of new business programs in analytics using end-to-end digital technologies (more than 400 in 2023 alone), it can be argued that education with the integration of AI in program development, the formation digital business skills, the development of career tracks, research will become an important bridge between AI and humans,” said Zhanna Belyaeva, Academic Director of GSEM UrFU, Head of the “International Economics and Business” program. “However, a survey of participants of the discussion showed that 90% of the audience is already using AI, 50% are ready to trust artificial intelligence in the planning and development of educational programs, while 38% do not know how to avoid the risks of incorrect use of AI in work and study.”

Artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing the business environment and has a significant impact on business education. The session proposed new formats for integrating AI into the mechanics of business education and formulas for success for business school graduates. It remains to derive a formula for payback and well-being in the modern AI labor market.