Expire or Evolve? Rethinking How We Frame Our Future

• An April conference session combined Oxford-style debate with AI-enhanced reflection to deepen participants’ exploration of the complex issues facing business education.
• The session’s unconventional format underscored the need for business schools to embrace experimentation and complement traditional methods with innovative processes.
• During a period of reflection, participants interacted with AI as a dialogue partner, demonstrating how AI might be used to challenge assumptions and encourage new ways of thinking.

 
“We need fresh approaches to explore the complex challenges facing business education today.” I’ve heard colleagues express some version of this statement at numerous conferences. Inspired by this sentiment, I wondered: Could we experiment with an alternative conference session that brought different voices together and generated new types of insights?

I recently piloted such an experimental session at AACSB’s 2025 International Conference and Annual Meeting, held in Vienna in April. The approach combined a classical debate with collective reflection augmented by artificial intelligence (AI). 

What emerged wasn’t just an engaging session. It was a potential model for how business education itself might evolve through process innovation.

Exploring an Alternative Approach

Traditional conference formats serve well to promote knowledge-sharing and relationship-building. But if we want to explore polarized perspectives or navigate complex tensions, we need an alternative format that allows participants to engage with different viewpoints in a structured, constructive manner.

For this, I drew inspiration from my earlier work developing the LEGO® Serious Play® method. At that time, I saw that innovating a long-standing process leads to fresh content. This principle guided my design for the Vienna session.

I organized the session around an Oxford-style debate over the following provocative motion: “Traditional business school models have reached their expiry date and are being overtaken by faster, more agile models of learning and credentialing.” I invited four business school deans to present structured arguments—two representing the “Expire” position and two defending what I called the “Evolve” perspective.

Before they began the discussion, I conducted a poll of the audience, asking whether or not they agreed with the motion. The results revealed that 59 percent agreed, while 31 percent objected, reflecting the divisions in our sector.

The Power of Structured Confrontation

The true power of the format emerged in the discussion that followed—a head-on collision of viewpoints presented in opening statements, cross-examinations, rebuttals, and closing arguments.

The “Expire” deans argued that the contract between students and business schools is fundamentally broken. They contended that modern learners prioritize outcomes over degrees, while faculty remain underprepared for an AI-augmented world, and edtech providers offer more relevant solutions.

The “Evolve” deans pointed to the growing demand for business education. Their argument highlighted the enduring social benefit of learning, as well as the impact of faculty’s innovation in both their teaching and their integration of AI in the classroom.

As moderator, I wanted to avoid the comfortable middle ground that so often emerges in panel discussions. Instead, I pressed both sides into a structured confrontation by posing questions about three urgent themes:

1. Flexibility and adaptation. The Evolve team provided compelling evidence that established business schools have become more dynamic. The deans cited examples such as schools that have developed one-year master’s programs in response to government pressure, as well as those that have created part-time professional education models with industry partners.

They emphasized that business schools are vibrant communities where students, who are “inherently social creatures,” can thrive in collaborative environments and form “invaluable networks that cannot be replicated by online platforms.”

The Expire team countered, pointing to structural features that make traditional schools too rigid. “The decision cycle from idea to implementation takes far too long,” the deans argued. “Notice that our opponents just used a 50-year-old model to describe how they’re evolving. It’s like asking someone from the 1800s what they need and getting ‘faster horses’ as the answer.”

The Expire team argued that the contract between students and business schools is fundamentally broken, while the Evolve team pointed to the growing demand for business education.

2. AI and human augmentation. The teams then debated whether faculty were being transformed from content providers into experience architects. The Evolve team asserted that this shift is already underway, noting that “our faculty view AI as a pedagogical tool changing how students learn, not just as content to be taught.” These deans emphasized the competitive advantage of university scholars. “We have real researchers exploring how AI changes society and business—something businesses don’t have.”

I asked the Expire team whether incremental AI adoption is too little, too late. “While business schools are still writing policies about AI,” the Expire deans argued, “the technology has already moved generations ahead.” These deans then posed a provocative question: “When AI systems can pass professional exams with ease, what does that tell us about the relevance of our traditional curriculum?”

3. Future-ready skills. Although the deans on the Evolve team acknowledged that employers have expressed doubts about graduate readiness, they defended current educational models, highlighting how many schools have taken an interdisciplinary approach. “We integrate classical business disciplines with wider social sciences such as philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology, as well as STEM fields like data science.” They noted that “in an age of misinformation, there’s an urgent need for certified knowledge.”

When I challenged the deans on the Expire team about whether agile nonacademic providers can deliver the breadth of knowledge that future leaders will need, they argued that educators were not as responsive as they should be to the needs of the market. Tomorrow’s learners, they stressed, “don’t want to enroll; they want to engage. They don’t want degrees; they want outcomes. They’re learning from TikTok, GitHub, [and] Discord, seeking Google certifications over GPAs.”

At this point, I conducted a mid-session poll that asked participants to identify the greatest obstacles preventing business schools from rapidly adapting. Responses were evenly split across three options: rigid governance structures, faculty resistance, and unclear strategy or insufficient leadership. These three barriers represent the depth of institutional inertia that innovation must address.

Once the debate had concluded, I polled the group again on the opening motion. This time, the audience had shifted to an almost perfect 51/49 split. Minds weren’t closed; they were opened, challenged, and enriched.

AI as Dialogue Partner and Messenger

At this point, I introduced another innovation: “Astrid,” an AI voice assistant. I designed Astrid to serve two roles. She acted as an interactive dialogue partner that could respond to questions in real time and as a messenger that could deliver my key recommendations. Astrid drew from a curated knowledge base that reflected diverse perspectives on the future of business education, as well as from my own research.

I have created a video that depicts Astrid’s interaction with the audience during the session, but I can also share here some highlights from the AI’s contributions. For example, when asked about the most significant barriers to change in business education, Astrid was blunt: “The greatest obstacle isn’t technological—it’s conceptual. Business schools still define themselves by what they teach rather than how their graduates think. This frames innovation as content updates rather than cognitive transformation.”

When a participant asked how faculty roles should evolve in an AI-rich environment, Astrid had this to say: “The faculty who thrive will be those who shift from content delivery to experience architecture. Instead of asking ‘What should students know?’ they’ll focus on ‘What situations should students navigate?’ This requires designing conditions for judgment development, not just information transfer.”

Johan Roos takes a selfie of himself in front of Astrid, the AI voice assistant he programmed to interact with participants during his reimagined conference session.

When challenged about whether rapid technological integration would compromise business schools’ social mission, Astrid offered a pragmatic perspective: “Technology without purpose becomes mere efficiency. Start by clarifying your institutional ‘why,’ then integrate AI as a means, not an end. Your commitment to social impact should drive technology adoption, not the reverse.”

At one point, I asked Astrid to predict what business education might look like five years ahead, if business schools embrace a startup founder mindset. The AI’s response was visionary: “By 2030, the most innovative business schools won’t have courses—they’ll have challenges. Students won’t listen to lectures on venture capital; they’ll raise actual funding. Faculty won’t teach strategy; they’ll mentor founders through real market entry.”

Astrid continued: “The classroom becomes an incubator, accreditation becomes outcomes-based, and the business school transforms from knowledge provider to ecosystem orchestrator. The question isn’t whether this happens, but who builds it first.”

This shift between near-term pragmatism and long-term vision showcased AI’s potential to be a valuable a thought partner—one capable of challenging listeners to consider both immediate practicalities and longer-term possibilities. 

The Process Is the Content

This experiment showed how merely designing the debate process can transform the conversation. It also yielded three deep insights:

• First, it showed how AI can both extend human thinking and amplify human insights. This is exactly what we should be teaching our students about AI: not only how it works, but also how to collaborate with it effectively.
• Second, it modeled an approach that we can use in our classrooms to develop the skills our graduates need: critical thinking, creativity, perspective-taking, persuasive communication, and the ability to engage respectfully with opposing viewpoints.
• Finally, it revealed several key tensions that are shaping our sector: tradition versus agility, depth versus speed, and human connection versus technological augmentation.

From Innovation to Transformation

In a final message, Astrid shared three recommendations, reflecting my own views. These recommendations were intended to help business schools reconcile these tensions successfully:

1. Rethink faculty roles. “Start by asking yourself, ‘Are your faculty still rewarded for broadcasting knowledge or for cultivating wisdom?’ If AI can deliver the content, your true differentiator is designing learning that develops practical, reflective judgment. That’s where the future of teaching lives,” Astrid noted.

In other words, faculty must create spaces for structured confrontation of ideas, not just presentations of information. And they must shift from delivering content to designing experiences that develop judgment—what the ancient Greeks called phronesis, or practical wisdom.

Faculty must create spaces for structured confrontation of ideas, and they must shift from delivering content to designing experiences that develop judgment.

2. Get serious about experimentation. “Let’s stop confusing reputation with relevance,” the AI remarked. “If your school hasn’t run a serious educational experiment in the past 12 months, you’re falling behind. Innovation is now a leadership responsibility, not an optional hobby for a few faculty.”

This means embracing more structured confrontation in our curricula, not just as a debate exercise but as a core pedagogical approach that develops rigorous thinking. The tension created by differently grounded and qualified arguments creates a productive space for learning when properly structured.

3. Shift from managing to founding. “Ask not how to produce better corporate managers. Ask how your programs develop founders—leaders with long-game mindsets, ownership instincts, and the courage to act. Because the future belongs to those who build it.”

This approach includes treating AI as a thought partner and human colleague rather than as a passive utility. Stanford University’s Jeremy Utley describes this view as adopting a “teammate mindset” rather than a “tool mindset.”

Who Will Lead the Change?

In a world defined by fragmented technology and ideology, well-designed processes can still foster meaningful dialogue and collective insights. In Vienna, the Expire and Evolve teams brought that possibility to life through their courage to challenge conventional thinking and willingness to engage with this experimental format. Their debate exemplified the type of thoughtful discourse we need more of in our field.

As one participant put it, “This wasn’t just a novel format—it showed us a process we could adapt for our classrooms.” Another said, “It’s given me ideas for how to structure difficult conversations at our next faculty retreat.”

I don’t presume to have the answers to the challenges facing business education. But I do know that when we rethink how we structure conversations—whether in conferences, classrooms, or boardrooms, and whether we use LEGO bricks or AI—we set the stage for greater innovation in what we think and how we act.

Changes to our processes can unlock better thinking. In that insight lies a possible path forward for business education itself.