Artificial Intelligence is no longer just a tech trend, it’s a defining force reshaping every sector of the economy. From business decisions to scientific breakthroughs, AI now underpins how organisations innovate, operate, and grow. This transformation has made it imperative for higher education to evolve, ensuring students graduate not just as learners but as AI-literate problem solvers.
India’s top universities and management institutes are responding with intent, embedding AI across disciplines, reimagining pedagogy through live industry projects, and preparing students to thrive in an era where human insight meets machine intelligence. Institutions like BITS Pilani and BITSoM are at the forefront of this transformation.
Through AI-centric courses, experiential learning modules, and dedicated research centres, they are equipping students with the skills to navigate a future where human creativity and artificial intelligence work hand in hand. These initiatives are not only enhancing employability but also cultivating innovators capable of designing AI-driven solutions for business, sustainability, and social challenges.
“The impact of Artificial Intelligence has been all pervasive across sectors and economic activities. The massive investments are being necessitated as a strategy for growth by leading corporates, as it promises great value propositions to customers through tremendous improvement in efficiency gains and productivity. The AI applications are resulting in massive layoffs across corporates and are simultaneously contributing to new job markets.
The changing business environment has created new opportunities and possibilities for teaching and learning, by greater focus on nurturing purposive relationships with students that inspire critical thinking and innovations. AI is contributing to faster and purposive research outcomes that would be far more relevant to the needs of society. Thus, while curriculums and contents are becoming proactive to future needs by greater focus on preparing future leaders who would be AI driven. Simultaneously, by assessing skill gaps that would emanate in future, educational institutions are focusing on inculcating skills that would require greater hands on inputs coupled with innovations to solve futuristic problems, thus preparing employable, reliable and dependable professionals for businesses. Students would be required to evaluate AI-generated outputs carefully wherein human creativity and judgment would result in meaningful outcomes.”
-Prof. Arya Kumar, Professor and Dean Alumni Relations at BITS, Pilani
AI could be the biggest disruptor of businesses in our lifetimes. At BITSoM, we are preparing our students to navigate these challenging times in multiple ways. Our goal is to have every BITSoM student build an AI product before they graduate. On the curriculum front, we have included a number of courses including a core course on AI and multiple elective courses on AI and digital transformation. In addition, as a way of learning by doing, students will work on live projects with companies to help them develop AI solutions specific to their businesses. These projects will span multiple industries including NGOs, finance, and marketing. Apart from the curriculum, we have set up an AI centre, called BRAIN, that is involved in creating AI use cases necessary to train our students. The goal of BRAIN is to do AI activities related to teaching, research, and outreach. For example, as part of the outreach we plan to set up an AI accelerator that will bring Indian startups working in AI to collaborate with BITSoM students and faculty.
-Prof. Saravanan Kesavan, Dean, BITSoM
