Sixty-five years after it was set up to groom leaders and entrepreneurs, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad is asking what a manager is for when software can do the analysis. Director Prof. Bharat Bhasker’s answer is judgement. “For us, the biggest change is a shift from teaching analysis to teaching judgement,” he says. Analysis is getting cheaper, the scarce skill is deciding what to ask.

The institutional bet is the Krishnamurthy Tandon School of Artificial Intelligence, launched this year on a Rs 100 crore endowment from alumna Chandrika Tandon (Post Graduate Programme, 1975). It works where technology, management and public impact meet. In six months, its research agenda has spread to public systems and governance, healthcare and fintech.