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Kogod School of Business
As artificial intelligence transforms the workplace, business schools are facing a new challenge: How do you teach students to use emerging technology without losing sight of the human skills that matter most?
At the Kogod School of Business at American University, Professor Alexandra Mislin is answering that question in a way that feels both timely and deeply practical. In her Negotiation course, students are using AI not as a shortcut, but as a tool for preparation, reflection, and hands-on learning—helping them strengthen one of the most essential skills in business: the ability to navigate high-stakes conversations with clarity, strategy, and confidence.
That approach reflects what sets Kogod apart in a crowded business education landscape: students are not just hearing about AI. They are using it in realistic, career-relevant ways that mirror the future of work.
How are Kogod students using AI in negotiation class?
In Mislin’s classroom, students first learn the human foundations of negotiation: how to identify interests, listen carefully, build trust, communicate under pressure, and understand the perspective of the other side.
Once that foundation is in place, AI becomes a tool for hands-on practice.
Students use AI to:
- prepare for difficult conversations
- role-play negotiation scenarios
- pressure-test their strategy
- identify blind spots in their thinking
- reflect on what worked and what to improve
Students use tools like Perplexity, which is available to all Kogod students through the school’s broader commitment to AI-powered learning, to simulate negotiation scenarios, test assumptions, and better understand the perspective of the other side.
That means students are actively practicing negotiation every day—using AI to sharpen the judgment, communication, and adaptability they will need to get hired and to succeed in the workplace.
Why does AI work well for hands-on business learning?
Negotiation is not a skill students master through memorization. It develops through repetition, experimentation, and reflection.
Professor Mislin thinks that’s where AI can add real value.
“I want my students to think about how these tools can help them to prepare for a negotiation, how they can help them practice their negotiations, and how they can support them when they’re stuck in negotiations. It could be for that bigger moment, but a lot of times, it’s all the steps leading up to it,” said Mislin in a feature with Fortune.
Instead of relying on a limited number of in-class simulations, students can extend that preparation and testing beyond the classroom—trying different approaches, and seeing how a conversation might unfold before it happens. That creates more room for trial, revision, and self-awareness.
Finding where your assumptions fall short, putting yourself into the shoes of the other party, considering where you are missing questions or curiosity—I think [AI] really does help a lot with that."
Alex Mislin, in her Fortune feature
Kogod School of Business Professor of Management
At Kogod, this kind of hands-on learning with AI helps students connect classroom concepts to real professional situations.
AI can help students practice for situations like:
- a salary negotiation
- a job offer conversation
- a client or team conflict
- an internship or workplace challenge
- a high-stakes business deal
- a leadership conversation that requires persuasion or tact
For students preparing for careers in business, that kind of applied learning can make the classroom experience feel more immediate, useful, and relevant.
How is Professor Alex Mislin’s research on AI in negotiations shaping the classroom experience?
Prof. Mislin’s work in this space is grounded in award-winning research.
Her scholarship has contributed to broader conversations about trust in artificial intelligence, including how people and organizations can use these tools responsibly as they become more central to daily life and work. That perspective helps shape how she introduces AI in the classroom: not as something students should automatically trust, but as something they should learn to evaluate critically.
Students aren’t being taught to accept AI outputs at face value. They are being taught to ask better questions, test assumptions, and decide when AI is useful—and when human judgment matters more.
That kind of critical fluency is increasingly valuable for employers looking for graduates who can use AI thoughtfully rather than passively.
What makes this approach different from simply ‘using AI in the classroom’?
Many business schools are still figuring out what AI integration should actually look like.
At Kogod, the goal is not to use AI for its own sake. The goal is to help students build practical, transferable AI skills they can carry into internships, jobs, and leadership roles.
At many institutions, AI is still treated as a standalone topic. In Prof. Mislin’s classroom (and throughout the Kogod curriculum), AI is integrated into a learning experience that is active, reflective, and directly connected to how work is changing.
Why are human skills becoming more valuable in the age of AI?
As AI becomes more powerful, there is increasing focus on the unique human talents that AI can enhance but not replicate or replace.
At Kogod, we call them “power skills."
Negotiation is one of them.
Negotiation requires emotional intelligence, trust, nuance, judgment, and the ability to read a situation that may not have a clear script. Those are skills students build through practice—not automation.