India’s Best B-schools: How SPJIMR is striking a balance between the use of AI and critical thinking

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST danger posed by AI? If you ask Varun Nagaraj, the dean of SP Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR), the answer wouldn’t be job displacements or economic disruption. Instead, he would say it is AI’s ability to potentially short-circuit the learning process and destroy human traits such as compassion, socialisation, communication, and connection. The professor of information management and analytics laments that curiosity is fast disappearing among people. “Because you don’t have to be curious; when you need to know something, you can know it. Curiosity is about knowing things that you may not necessarily know why you want to know; you’re just curious. So, the whole notion of curiosity is being compromised.” This concern has led SPJIMR to make some tough curriculum choices. It has moved a subject like systems dynamics — that trains students to think about connections that are often unnoticed — from an elective to a compulsory course. After all, doing business in a disruptive world is all about solving unprecedented problems. The AI disruption notwithstanding, Nagaraj is a strong believer in the traditional role of B-schools — to groom the best managers. Perhaps that’s why, as the head of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan-backed Mumbai B-school, he is convinced that critical thinking abilities will assume greater significance for management professionals in an AI world. An AI chatbot may be able to come up with solutions for a particular challenge with multiple use cases. But when an unprecedented challenge strikes, critical thinking will distinguish a leader, he reasons. So, how does the B-school, established in 1981, achieve the perfect balance between AI and preserving human judgement? It is actively integrating AI into its two-year postgraduate diploma in management (PGDM) programme. For instance, beginning January 2026, all 110 students of Information Management and Analytics will be required to take the ‘AI Maker Lab’ course. Six workshops will be part of the sessions, to be led by faculty members fluent in the latest AI tools. The sessions will include an introduction to vibe coding, where students prototype ideas using natural language prompts with the help of Generative AI, without the need to master full-scale software development. The idea is exposure. “We are going to expose them a little bit to the [AI] tools. We’re going to buy licences and set up a lab that’s open all night so they can practise what they want. But it’s on them to learn the tools,” Nagaraj says, with emphasis on the last sentence. He explains why. “In life, no one’s going to teach you. You have to learn by yourself.” He’s quick to acknowledge the friction this approach creates with the established Indian education system’s pedagogy, which emphasises the teacher’s role in instruction. “If I look at our summer interns’ projects, half of them actually worked with AI-related things. These are not kids who had learnt coding, but they learnt within those two months. So it’s possible,” he says, pointing out that no one was teaching them in the work environment. The dean wants the students to bring the same ethic to the campus as well. “Why should you only do great at Procter & Gamble? You can do great at SPJIMR as well!” It is also piloting ‘Critical Thinking with AI’ with plans to make it a core subject in the near future. The focus is on developing AI-native professionals, and not just making them AI-ready, says Nagaraj. Gautam Chhajed, a second-year student of marketing, says the introduction of AI, with the emphasis on critical thinking, makes for a “vibrant” curriculum. “We get to experience both — where to use all the tools and where not to use the tools. Where we have to be critical, where we have to think through it.” Under Nagaraj, SPJIMR aims to shape the next generation of “AI-native” professionals equipped with sharp critical thinking.

India’s Best B-schools: How SPJIMR is striking a balance between the use of AI and critical thinking

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