LOUISE CLAASSEN: Heat on business schools as ChatGPT looms over knowledge workers and managers

While technology has been changing the nature of work and the lives of workers since the first industrial revolution, never has the extent of the change unleashed on the world been as rapid as it is now.

Just as automation and computerisation wreaked havoc on industrial workers and middle management jobs, we are now faced with the possibility that disruptive technologies — specifically generative artificial intelligence (AI) models such as ChatGPT — will have a similar effect on knowledge workers, long thought future proof against digital technological changes.

The onus is on business schools and other institutions of education to respond or be left flat-footed. They need to find new ways to instil in students the skills and expertise required in a race that pits people, education and organisations against an endless tide of technological innovation.

Ironically, it is these very innovations that could help business schools stay one step ahead of technological disruption. By including generative AI, Web 3.0 technologies, and the emerging and disruptive technologies — collectively called extended reality (XR), consisting of augmented reality, virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality — in their curricula, forward-looking business schools can effectively work with their clients to prepare adaptive leaders for the quickly evolving business ecosystem in which they need to operate.

These technologies have an unrivalled ability to allow people to visualise the invisible and grapple with the intangible while gaining the skills they need to lead digital transformation in their business environments.

VR has been used to teach complex technical skills to the likes of surgeons, pilots and astronauts for decades and is now increasingly being used to train employees to do their jobs. Jeremy Bailenson, a professor of communication at Stanford University, founding director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab and co-founder of Strivr, a virtual reality immersive learning platform provider, wrote in Harvard Business Review that people learn best by doing, and by getting immediate feedback when they make mistakes. This is why high-stakes lines of work are natural applications of the medium.

More attractive

The same is true for employees working in a range of industries who can practise in headsets to get better at their jobs, come to understand the broader mechanics of their industry and experience scenarios that can’t be simulated in the classroom.

With people increasingly working remotely or in hybrid workplaces, technology-enabled learning is becoming more attractive to employers looking for effective ways to enable their workforce to learn new skills “on the job” or gain greater insights into the functioning of the business. Research is emerging that this is not only an expedient choice, but also one that delivers better outcomes.

A 2022 study by PwC on the metaverse, which compared the learning outcomes of three groups of new managers who chose to attend a training programme either in-person, online or through the use of VR technology, found that VR learners can be trained four times faster than those in the classroom, their confidence about applying the skills they had just learnt increased by 275%, and their emotional connection to the content was 3.75 times stronger than that of classroom learners. In addition, the VR learners were four times more focused than their online peers.

Another study involving 160 students from Stanford University and the Technical University of Denmark showed a 76% increase in learning effectiveness when using virtual methods, and a 101% increase when VR applications were married with facilitator-led coaching and mentoring.

Experiential and immersive learning is not a new concept in business schools, having long been used to embed and support theory through the act of doing, enhancing the acquisition of knowledge and new ideas, and providing interactive, stimulating and engaging learning experiences.

Logistical challenge

Since the late 1990s MBA programmes from leading international business schools have included intensive in-country experiences of a week or two where students are exposed to different cultures and business practices while communing with business leaders, academics, entrepreneurs and fellow students from other parts of the world.

These experiences offer significant learning opportunities for students, but they can be expensive and pose a logistical challenge when they need to be deployed across a business, at scale.

Online courses, the use of games in traditional classrooms and even specially designed apps can bridge the divide to a degree, but they lack the intensity of truly immersive, interactive learning experiences, which emerging tech solutions can provide.

Extended reality (XR) opens the door for exponential learning, helping to break established patterns of thinking and acting that can be entrenched in organisations that prepare employees for now and for the future. A key benefit is that it helps to demystify and de-jargon the world of technology for those who need to work with it. The research shows that once a student experiences XR, the conversation about technology shifts from one of uncertainty and fear to one of excitement and possibility.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, an international authority on the human-AI interface, says the impact and reach of new versions of Chat 4 and AI cannot be known for certain. All we can do is try to prepare our students’ minds so that they can meet the challenges that lie ahead with mental acuity, resourcefulness, and a sense of possibility.

• Claassen is an executive fellow of Henley Business School Africa, MD of creative emerging technology lab start-up ORBmersive, and author of a new Henley Africa white paper, “Emerging Technologies and Immersive Learning”.