In the PhD program, we train students to ask the right questions, always ask about the basis for an inference and to keep coming up with new approaches to problems. With AI, MBAs might need these very skills.

The teaching semester is fast approaching at Columbia Business School, and I have spent the last three weeks updating my presentation slides to teach my class on fundamental analysis titled FAIME. In this class, we perform a 360-degree analysis of one or two companies throughout the semester. This time, I have picked Home Depot and Starbucks.

The slides took much longer to update this time around, not because Home Depot and Starbucks have become more involved to difficult to understand. It’s because of my attempt, nudged by our deans, to deeply integrate AI in what we teach. Incidentally, we need to use both time saved and the quality of the work produced to measure the contribution of AI to productivity.

As I spent more time with ChatGPT5 and Gemini (I did not try the other AI tools), I kept falling back to four skills I learned during my PhD program:

1. Try to keep all inferences evidence based.
2. Always ask what the basis for an inference is.
3. Learn to ask the right questions. The answers usually are less important.
4. We keep pushing PhD students on “what’s your incremental contribution?” to everything that is out there.

I’ll weave these themes into my experience with using GPT5 for my class notes...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/shivaramrajgopal/2025/08/24/the-phd-is-the-new-mba/