Artificial intelligence provides exciting opportunities

All of us fortunate enough to live in Montana understand the importance of agriculture and the rhythm of the seasonal agrarian calendar. Our school year mirrors that same cycle. As we approach the peak of summer, we know that both the harvest and the start of the 2025–2026 academic year are fast approaching. 

Much like farming, education requires preparation, care, and adaptation. Agriculture has always been a blend of tradition and innovation, from planting schedules passed down through generations to precision GPS systems guiding modern equipment. Now, another powerful tool is reshaping both fields: artificial intelligence. AI will assist in designing fields and crop rotations, planning fertilization, seeding, and weed application, along with countless other applications that have yet to be conceived.

A primary goal of the UM College of Business is to ensure that our students become confident technologists, which now means providing them with the skills to effectively and ethically use AI. For the past year, we have implemented AI tools in our curriculum and research. We have been developing strategies and guiding principles for ensuring our students engage with AI in a clearly articulated and pedagogically supported way. 

When I get questions about AI and college, most people think about students using ChatGPT to write a paper. While writing and editing are obvious applications, our faculty and students are already using AI in creative, constructive, and ways in which the human stays in the loop. Faculty have built a course-specific chatbot that allows students to ask questions about material on demand. Some use AI to clean massive data sets, a task that used to take weeks. 

A few examples for use within our curriculum are that our faculty developed a closed language model to create an “agent” or chatbot that allows students to ask questions about class material. Imagine being in school and having the ability to ask those questions without waiting outside your professor’s door during office hours. Other programs are using it to clean large data sets that used to require weeks and months of intensive work. 

Some students are using it to organize their lives as they juggle work deadlines, family obligations, and academic goals. One student is a bartender who uses AI to create new drink ideas, while others use it to help establish personal or business budgets. Some students use it to check their programming code or to develop marketing materials. 

With all of the practical and innovative applications, we also recognize that the use of AI presents ethical dilemmas. That is why we teach our students to use AI responsibly. We ask them to compare AI-generated results to their own, to analyze and reflect, to think critically and ethically — and to always keep the human element in the loop. 

The new technological horizon is exciting, regardless of the sector. We are training our students to lead in this new era, across every industry and sector. Whether in fields of grain or fields of data, the next generation of Montana business leaders will be ready to guide us into the future. 

Suzanne Tilleman is the Sprunk and Burnham Endowed Dean at the College of Business at the University of Montana.