American University’s Business School Launches Partnership With Perplexity AI
Credit: Dee Dwyer / Bloomberg / Getty Images- The American University Kogod School of Business announced a partnership with Perplexity to provide Perplexity Enterprise Pro AI to students, faculty, and staff.
- The Perplexity AI partnership complements Kogod’s already intensive AI efforts.
- Kogod is the latest business school to partner with an AI company to bring the emerging tech to students.
The American University Kogod School of Business is tripling down on artificial intelligence (AI) with a new partnership.
Kogod announced a partnership with Perplexity to provide its Enterprise Pro AI to all students, staff, and faculty. That partnership is the latest move for a business school that has consistently led the charge in combining AI in business education, and it continues a broader trend of AI companies partnering with major business schools.
“Students can build custom tutors to master their coursework; faculty can create AI-powered knowledge hubs for research, and staff can integrate AI into their everyday workflows,” Kogod Dean David Marchick said in a press release.
“It’s all about setting each person here up for success as business changes.”
That new partnership will build on Kogod’s current work with AI: The school moved last year to infuse AI throughout its curriculum, and it rolled out courses in AI and machine learning.
Marchick said at the time that the school aimed to be “aggressive and bold” to prepare students for a rapidly shifting workplace.
“American University, like many others, is accelerating its AI-focused research agenda,” Marchick said in a 2024 press release. “But the driving force behind the changes we announce today is the impact we will have on the student experience — and on student outcomes after they leave us.”
Business Schools Go All in on AI
Kogod is one of the leaders in embracing AI in business education, but it isn’t alone. A number of business schools have launched AI partnerships and investments over the past year.
Rutgers Business School, for example, recently announced a partnership with Google to boost its AI education. Google’s suite of AI tools, including its own Gemini, Meta’s Llama, and Anthropic’s Claude, will be available through a single tool at the school as part of that partnership.
Rutgers Business School Dean Lei Lei emphasized the need for AI education.
“The fast advancement of technologies has fundamentally shifted the landscape of the business world and is making a transformative impact across industries,” Lei said in the 2024 press release. “As a large public business school, our ambition is to prepare graduates with the skills and talent most in demand by industry.”
AI makers have partnered with higher education institutions across the country to offer their tools to students over the past year.
OpenAI in 2024 launched ChatGPT Edu for colleges following a first-of-its-kind partnership with Arizona State University. The ChatGPT creator has since partnered with other universities, including the California State University.
AI has become widespread at business schools. The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) found in its 2024 Application Trends Survey that most business schools have incorporated AI into their curriculum in some form.
In fact, only 22% said they hadn’t made AI part of student learning.