NUS Business School pilots AI simulation to sharpen executive judgement

NUS Business School has been running a pilot since January 2026 in which MBA and Executive MBA students interact with AI-simulated executives to practise strategic questioning and decision-making. Roughly 100 students across Singapore and Jakarta have used the tool to date, many of them senior executives in their day jobs.

The simulation runs on ScholAIstic, a generative AI platform built by the NUS AI Centre for Educational Technologies (AICET). Students are presented with a business scenario and must decide what information they need, which simulated executive to interview, and how to evaluate the answers they receive before arriving at a recommendation. The AI personas include a chief executive, a chief financial officer and a chief product and technology officer, each offering a distinct perspective on the same situation.

How the simulation works

Unlike traditional case-based learning, in which students are given a fixed information set and asked to reach a conclusion, the NUS model requires students to actively determine what they need to know. After each simulated interview, participants receive personalised feedback on their questioning style, enabling them to adjust their approach in subsequent exchanges.

Early analysis of interview transcripts from the pilot suggests that higher-quality interviews are characterised by targeted follow-up questions and real-time adaptation as new information emerges, rather than a prepared checklist worked through in sequence. The school says the findings point to a more nuanced role for generative AI in management education: not as an answer engine, but as a scenario generator that forces students to practise the kind of iterative, uncertainty-aware reasoning that executive roles demand.

Senior Lecturer in Finance Emir Hrnjić, who has collaborated with AICET to adapt the tool for management contexts, said: "Students must decide what they need to know, ask the right questions, challenge what they hear and exercise judgement without having the complete picture. The aim is not to replace that human instinct with AI, but to sharpen it by helping students become more discerning about what to ask and trust."

Market context and wider implications

Interest in AI-augmented learning platforms is growing across business education globally, with a number of edtech vendors and university-developed tools competing to serve executive and MBA programmes. The broad category spans AI tutors, automated essay feedback, and now simulation-based roleplay, each positioning itself differently in a market that remains fragmented and without dominant incumbents at the enterprise level.

The NUS pilot sits within a wider regional context. Southeast Asian economies, Indonesia in particular, are expanding AI adoption across industries rapidly. A 2020 projection by Kearney and EDBI estimated that AI could contribute US$366 billion to Indonesia's GDP by 2030, equivalent to roughly 12 per cent of projected GDP at the time. Those figures underline why developing leaders who can critically evaluate AI-generated outputs, rather than simply accept them, is increasingly treated as a strategic priority for the region's organisations.

NUS Business School said it intends to extend the simulation approach to other areas of management education where students need to negotiate competing interests and question stakeholders under pressure. The school frames this as part of a broader institutional commitment to integrating AI into learning in ways that develop judgement and critical thinking rather than substituting for them. Whether the ScholAIstic platform is licensed externally or remains an internal research tool has not been disclosed.