Nitin Nohria, Former Dean of Harvard Business School: Read AI's Answers Aloud, Then Ask Yourself What You Agree With and What You Disagree With
In a Bloomberg podcast, Nitin Nohria, former dean of Harvard Business School, describes a specific method he has begun using in his classes: requiring students to read aloud the verbatim responses generated by AI agents for case studies, and then answer three questions—what they agree with, what they disagree with, and what follow-up questions they asked. He argues that this critical reasoning process, which involves relying on AI before questioning it, is an essential capability for future work; however, this represents personal teaching practice rather than a verified educational experiment.
Nitin Nohria, former dean of Harvard Business School, described a specific practice he has begun implementing in his classrooms during an interview on Bloomberg’s At The Money podcast. When teaching case-based courses, he requires students to read aloud the verbatim responses provided by AI agents regarding the cases—not paraphrasing or summarizing, but actually reading the text generated by the AI. He then poses three questions: What do you agree with? What do you disagree with? And what further questions did you ask to refine your thinking?
Nohria believes that this pattern of reliance followed by skepticism is key. Students cannot avoid AI tools because they will be required to use them in the workplace. However, merely using these tools does not equate to cultivating judgment. His logic is to treat AI output as an external entity that must be scrutinized, rather than as an answer to be accepted directly. The act of reading aloud forces students to confront exactly what the AI said, rather than what they assumed it said; asking about agreement and disagreement transforms passive reception into active evaluation.
He used a metaphor from Marvel comics to describe this relationship: everyone can develop their own superpower, and AI is equivalent to your Iron Man suit, but you must tune it to yourself. Not all Marvel heroes possess the same superpowers—the way each person uses AI and the resulting outcomes should differ, and this difference itself constitutes individual competitive advantage.