AI Strategy

Our AI Strategy

HSB's approach to AI is guided by Baylor's Christian mission. The goal is to prepare principled leaders who use AI with discernment and take responsibility for their work.

Three sources shape the strategy: Baylor's mission, the Human-Technology Interface imperative in the Baylor in Deeds strategic plan, and the perspective of HSB's Center for Christian Leadership and Ethics. HSB treats responsible AI use as part of its mission.

Guided by Baylor's Mission

Baylor's Mission is “to educate men and women for worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment within a caring community.” The Business School carries that mission into the HSB Mission: “We develop principled leaders who influence community, embrace humility and pursue excellence.”

The mission informs HSB's approach to AI in these ways:

• Academic excellence. Since Fall 2025, every HSB course has been expected to include AI in a meaningful way, so students build proficiency with current tools.
• Christian commitment. AI is approached as a tool to be stewarded in service of human judgment, character and calling.
• Caring community. Students and faculty learn AI together through peer consultants, student and faculty advisory groups, and a faculty course redesign cohort. In these contexts, AI supports relationships among faculty, staff and students.
• Leadership and service. HSB aims to prepare graduates to judge whether, when, and how AI serves the people their decisions affect.
• Stewardship. One of HSB's four values, stewardship treats time, resources, and influence as gifts held for the common good. HSB applies it to data privacy and to the AI tools the school provides.

The Human-Technology Interface Imperative

Baylor in Deeds, the university's strategic plan for 2024-2030, names the Human-Technology Interface as one of four imperatives. The plan states that as technology does more of the technical work once done by humans, Baylor “must develop students to be more fully human and guided by moral, intellectual and spiritual virtues.”

HSB's work connects to the imperative in three areas:

1. Working with technology. Human-AI collaboration is one of HSB's seven AI competencies. The AI Sandbox offers students private logins to locally run AI models on four workstations. The AI Venture Challenge launched as part of HSB's work on this imperative.
2. Becoming more fully human. HSB's competencies also include critical evaluation, ethical reasoning, and communicating about AI. AI Peer Consultants help classmates distinguish AI-assisted work from AI-dependent work.
3. Public service. Dr. Hope Koch serves on the Texas Artificial Intelligence Council, and her students produce research and recommendations for the council.

The Strategy in Practice

Current HSB practices connected to these commitments include:

What We Are Learning

HSB surveyed faculty and students at the end of Fall 2025 and Spring 2026, the first two semesters of AI in every HSB course. The results show faculty and students building real capability, and they point to where the work continues.

Faculty see results in the classroom. Among faculty who used AI in their teaching, two-thirds said it enhanced learning in their class in both semesters. The share who said AI made them a better teacher rose from 47% to 58%, and 71% finished Spring 2026 more confident in their own AI skills.

Support for faculty is growing. Faculty agreement rose on all six survey questions about the school's AI support. Agreement that HSB has clear policies for responsible AI use rose from 29% to 45%, and agreement that there are enough forums to learn about AI rose from 53% to 69%. Nearly three-quarters of faculty say they are regularly informed about AI opportunities.

Students are gaining confidence. Student confidence in using AI to complete assignments rose from 60% in Fall 2025 to 79% in Spring 2026, a statistically significant gain. In Spring, 84% of students said they have the knowledge and skills to use AI effectively, and 81% finished the semester more confident in their AI skills.

Students use AI to learn. Asked why they use AI, 88% of Fall 2025 students said to better understand a concept, ahead of saving time (67%). Study support and brainstorming were the leading uses in both semesters.

What we are still working out

Protecting learning. Many faculty and some students worry that AI can reduce learning. In Spring 2026, 56% of faculty raised this concern, and 45% of student respondents said they learn more without AI. HSB takes these concerns seriously, including those rooted in Baylor's Christian mission. HSB's approach addresses them: faculty set the level of AI use for each assignment, and courses such as BUS 1350 introduce AI for completing skill work only after students have built the skill.

Consistency across courses. About four in five students say their top concern is being accused of cheating, largely because AI expectations vary from course to course. Students asked for clear, consistent guidance and for more instruction in how to use AI well. The five-level AI Use Framework gives faculty a common language for setting AI use on each assignment, and making those expectations clear and consistent for students across courses is a current priority.

About the surveys: HSB faculty and student AI surveys, Fall 2025 (112 faculty, 245 students) and Spring 2026 (59 faculty, 67 students). Each semester drew a separate group of respondents, and the Spring student sample is small, so changes in student results other than assignment confidence should be read as directional.

Who Leads the Strategy

Anthony Lapes, Assistant Dean for AI and Business Technology, owns the development and implementation of HSB's AI strategy.

The strategy is informed by:

• Dean David M. Szymanski, who set the expectation that every HSB course include AI
• HSB's associate deans
• HSB's department chairs
• The Faculty AI Advisory Council, with faculty from every HSB department, which meets each semester
• The AI Student Advisory group, which meets with HSB leadership several times each semester

The student-led HSB AI Society brings student concerns to the AI Student Advisory group.

Timeline

Key milestones in HSB's AI work since 2024: