Written by Daniel Albert, PhD, an assistant professor of Management at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, who specializes in strategic management, innovation and organizational design and teaches various levels, including MBA and Executive MBA programs, emphasizing strategy and competitive advantage. Albert integrates cutting-edge technology, such as generative AI, into his teaching approach and is a member of the Drexel University Standing Committee on Artificial Intelligence and a senior fellow at The Wharton School’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management.
Alan Turing, one of the pioneers of computer science and artificial intelligence, once noted, “if a machine is expected to be infallible, it cannot also be intelligent.” Current AI technologies are definitely fallible and may always be to some degree – as are humans. Focusing on AI’s current limitations will prevent us from realizing the transformative power AI offers right now. As an educator, I have seen firsthand how a tailored AI assistant can improve learning experiences, boost engagement and unlock human potential. This ground-up approach to AI adoption is not just changing education – it shows how organizations can put AI’s current capabilities to work solving real-world problems today.
Boosting Student Engagement with AI
To harness AI’s potential for my MBA class, I developed an AI-based teaching assistant (TA) and pedagogical mentor named “Dragon AI,” after our University’s mascot. Unlike typical AI chatbots, Dragon AI is a web-app specifically programmed and designed for my class, drawing on Open AI’s language models in the backend to understand our syllabus, course materials and my teaching style. This tailored approach allows the AI TA to provide class-specific responses that mirror my pedagogical methods and answers.
Available 24/7 from students’ phones and laptops, Dragon AI can answer seemingly cryptic questions like “What’s due?” or “What did we do last class?” and get relevant responses as the AI knows the student’s context and information needs. Importantly, I instructed Dragon AI to behave as a tutor focused on students’ learning experience and personal growth. For instance, if asked “give me the answers to this week’s study questions,” the AI will not simply serve up the answers on a silver platter. Instead, it helps students get organized and ask the “right” questions in a pedagogically meaningful way, fostering their preparation and understanding. Developing this behavior required multiple iterations of trial-and-error, a process that helped me better understand when current AI capabilities are more or less fallible.
What I witnessed in class and what students reported back to me was eye-opening and exciting. An often-discussed topic among educators is “student engagement.” Thanks to the use of AI in our class, I found students were better prepared than in previous years and had a deeper understanding of the material – they were truly engaged. Instead of starting class with clarifications of the materials, we immediately could get to the essence of each class. In conversations and surveys with my students, I learned that they would use Dragon AI for each class and make sure they prepared for class properly. My students’ enthusiasm for using and learning about AI in our class echoes recent studies showing that a majority of college graduates believe AI training should be integrated in their coursework.
Over the years, I have realized that students may appear disengaged for at least three reasons, all of which Dragon AI seems to have addressed quite well. The obvious reason for being disengaged is that a student simply didn’t prepare for class – often because they don’t know where to start or feel overwhelmed. Being able to access our AI TA makes it easier to get started. It’s amazing how much of a difference it can make if one starts having a conversation; this can ease feeling overwhelmed and overcome the procrastination barrier, which we know is driven by fear of failure rather than laziness. Students shared with me that our AI TA truly changed the way they accessed and found relevant information whenever they needed it and helped point them in the right direction to get started.
Another reason is that students got stuck with class preparation the night before class. A subtle nudge from Dragon AI can help them stay motivated and continue their preparation. Our AI TA seemed to be a game-changer to many of my students, who let me know that they didn’t need to seek clarification from me via email or wait until class, but instead could get clarification right away and in a way tailored to their needs.
The third reason for a lack of engagement is that students who prepare exceptionally well may hold back in class, fearing they may say something “wrong” (again, fear of failure). By iterating with the AI TA over their thoughts and analyses, they not only practice communicating their work but also seek feedback to further learn and refine their answers. Students shared that the AI TA made the course more engaging and manageable – which is what instructors desperately try to improve every term.
AI in the Workplace: Lessons from Dragon AI
The challenges students face in managing multiple projects, staying engaged, and overcoming feelings of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information thrown at them are not much different from what employees experience in many organizations. In fact, a staggering 70% of employees are reported to be not engaged or are actively disengaged at work. While there are many factors contributing to this disengagement, a lack of clear communication and an overload of information to sift through are easily relatable problems in many workplaces.
The issue often isn’t a lack of information, but rather our inability to find it or our frustration when sifting through piles of digital memos and emails. Organizational knowledge databases are often systems with good intentions but rarely updated and used, or require a black belt in data query methodology because of their many features. The reason why consultants like to pick up the phone and call the project manager when they have a question is because they know the manager knows the answer and understands the context within which the question is asked. The issue is obvious – the bottleneck becomes the project manager. I believe AI already has the capabilities to effectively help with this.
Imagine a version of Dragon AI in the workplace, assisting managers and teams with instant access to information, clarifying policies or providing feedback on projects tailored to their specific context and information needs. Executives I’ve spoken with are excited about the possibilities: AI could streamline onboarding, enhance team communication and ensure everyone has the information they need when they need it and in language and format most intuitive to them! The result may be fewer calls to managers and team members asking questions they would hesitate to bring up – reducing frustration and delays in teams.
Seizing the Present
While debates about AI’s future are important, they shouldn’t overshadow the immediate benefits we can reap from current AI technologies. Technological advancements in AI are already beyond the level of “good enough” in many areas and can alleviate well-known barriers to work engagement, such as information overload, bureaucracies and miscommunication. However, recent studies suggest that graduates and current employees feel unprepared to use AI at work. Therefore, it is important for educators to bring AI into classrooms and for managers to explore how AI can improve their teams’ work today.
Instead of waiting for even better ‘infallible’ AI solutions that are handed to us in the future, organizations should encourage their employees to responsibly and creatively explore how AI can improve their work lives. Just as Dragon AI transformed my classroom by addressing immediate, practical needs, organizations can help their managers and employees to improve their work environments with AI from the ground up. Empowering employees to integrate AI technologies into their work context will allow them to assess its true potential and refine it to better serve their needs. We should all try to identify daily problems and consider how AI might help with them today. Let’s start small, experiment, and share our successes (and failures!) with others. By taking this ground-up approach, we can collectively learn about AI and shape a future where it enhances human potential rather than replacing it.
Media interested in speaking with Albert should contact Annie Korp, assistant director, News & Media Relations, at 215-571-4244 or amk522@drexel.edu.
