The contemporary era of unprecedented technological advancements, especially that of Artificial Intelligence (AI), has transformed knowledge paradigm and learning trajectory so profoundly that it has become imperative for students of management, commerce, humanities, and liberal arts to garner adequate knowledge and proficiency of such emerging technologies in order to have a competitive edge in their professional pursuits. Dynamic changes in AI applications have made students of such streams increasingly adaptive to new technology tools through a continuous process of skilling, reskilling, and upskilling while embracing an interdisciplinary approach by combining AI knowledge with their existing expertise to become more versatile, efficient, and productive in workplaces.
Students of management, commerce and even humanities can learn how AI is transforming business operations, fin-tech, e-commerce, marketing strategies, customer experiences, etc. AI-powered analytics can assist such students in making data-driven decisions with efficacy while optimising business processes. Students pursuing e-commerce, operations, marketing, and financial management can excel in their profession through the application of AI in achieving better customer experience, efficient supply chain management, improved operational efficiency, designing standard, reliable and robust product quality control methods while determining new ways of reaching and serving customers in a cost-effective manner. Most of the e-commerce organisational websites are currently using chatbots to improve customer satisfaction and provide enhanced services to customers. These chatbots are developed using artificial intelligence.
In recent years, AI has been greatly used by management and commerce students for predictive analytics, where it processes historical data to forecast future trends while assisting in strategic decision-making and risk management. Students can learn how AI models assist in strategic planning by simulating different business scenarios and their potential outcomes. This allows management professionals to explore various strategies for business expansion and market penetration. AI also assists in automating the collection and analysis of market data from diverse sources such as social media, news articles, and customer reviews. Management students pursuing market research can gain valuable insights on consumer behaviour and preferences from such AI interventions.
The uniqueness of AI also lies in its multidisciplinary attributes and significant impact on streams of humanities and liberal arts. For instance, a student of literature can very well explore AI applications in natural language processing (NLP) for content creation or analysis. Concurrently, students of international relations and diplomacy can adopt AI approaches in areas of political consulting, policy analysis, and predictive analysis on military, diplomatic, and trade engagements through data-driven insights. They can take advantage of AI-enabled instant language translation to experience the efficacy of diplomatic communications. In contemporary geopolitics, diplomats often use AI techniques for robust planning on strategic issues during bilateral and multilateral negotiations. Moreover, AI systems can effectively model potential political and economic ramifications of international conflicts, humanitarian crises, trade agreements, climate change, and other complex global challenges while assisting diplomats, experts, and students of international relations assess the intensity of the problem and make prudent decisions. Simultaneously, AI-powered advanced NLP models that involve working with textual data, including tasks like sentiment analysis, language translation, and chatbot development, can be extremely helpful for the analysis of cultural context and dialectical expressions. This enables diplomats, researchers, and students to navigate the subtleties of cross-cultural communications. AI also allows diplomacy researchers to sift through enormous amounts of data to analyse trends and patterns and predict the future trajectory of geostrategic engagement.
Switching gears to other areas of arts and humanities, students of dance appreciation can use AI-powered tools to generate creative choreography, enrich performance analysis, and contribute to the ingenious artistry of dance. For psychology and behaviour analysis researchers and students, AI algorithms can assist them in better analysing human behaviour patterns and psychometric profiling and gain insights into people’s social interactions, perceptions, and personality traits. In the domain of interior design and office/home decor, students and professionals are increasingly using AI tools to create detailed 3D renderings of design projects. Amazingly, AI can also recommend colour combinations, furniture, and accessories that are personalised to customer’s preferences. Moreover, the dynamic nature of AI tools has opened new possibilities for innovative processes. Creative arts professionals and students commonly use AI tools to analyse vast amounts of data and generate unique concepts and unexpected connections, which might fuel their prolific ideas and ultimately end up producing the next creative masterpiece. For students pursuing music appreciation, AI algorithms can compose music by analysing vast amounts of existing compositions, creating new melodies and symphonies and generating unique musical ideations.
One has to understand that AI’s increasing versatility, usefulness and complementarity for streams like management, commerce, humanities, and liberal arts have enormously enhanced its relevance and social acceptance globally. Students and professionals from such streams can bring unique perspectives and domain-specific expertise to AI projects to make them more ethical, inclusive, sustainable, and socially responsive. The participation of students in AI internships belonging to management, commerce, humanities, and liberal arts is rising exponentially, thereby propelling interdisciplinary collaboration and leading to more innovative and people-centric solutions. Students of such streams often possess skills such as critical thinking, interpersonal communication, soft skills, etc., that are valuable for fine-tuning AI approaches. By participating in AI internships and live projects, these students can contribute their diverse skills to tasks like data analysis, user experience design, market research, business ethics, etc., which make AI models more socially responsive. AI applications have profound implications for societal well-being through ethical considerations, bias mitigation, and enhancing accessibility. Students of anthropology, sociology and public policy can contribute valuable insights to help AI technologies be more efficient in mitigating social problems responsibly and ethically. One needs to grasp these concepts to design and implement AI models effectively.
The writer is a professor of economics and international relations at IILM University Gurugram