Higher education CEO on AI’s role in developing health care workers

AI is quickly transforming the way companies and CEOs are approaching their businesses and the strategies that take them forward. Amid that rapid transformation, Adtalem Global Education CEO Steve Beard said there is a “threshold question” that he keeps coming back to.

“That question is, is AI a complement for what you do, or is it a substitute for what you do?” said Beard. “I think the answer to that question informs your strategy on how to best leverage the technology. For us, we’ve got a high degree of conviction that it’s a complement for what we do.”

The health-care education provider is now “experimenting with a whole host of use cases, he said.

From AI tutors helping students with learning, to automating enrollment tasks so more friction is taken out of processes like transferring credits and finding financial aid, and piloting tools that help employees increase their productivity, Beard is keen on the company leaning in. At the same time, Beard is thinking about how AI is changing the health-care landscape, and how it can better prepare students for an industry that is also rapidly changing thanks to new tools.

Leaning into AI hasn’t come without some challenges. Beard noted that school faculty had initially been hesitant to embrace the technology over fears it could replace the things that they did for students. He also has been wary of pushing “AI for AI’s sake,” instead ensuring that the company is “stepping back and asking, ‘What is the business problem we’re trying to solve,’ and then let’s design the AI-powered solution for that problem as opposed to throwing AI at everything and seeing what happens.”

“We want to make investments where the return can last over time, because an AI solution today is going to be remarkably different than an AI solution five years from now,” he said.

Beard has been focused on transformation since being appointed CEO of Adtalem just over four years ago, whether that’s been integrating key acquisitions, refocusing the company around health-care education, or finding key synergies to drive results across the company’s five institutions. There’s also been plenty of lessons in that journey that he’s now applying to the company’s approach to AI.

“Everybody loves change, as long as it’s for someone else,” he said. “Any large-scale change initiative is super hard; in my experience, the place to begin that journey is really on an emotional level with your stakeholders and developing a vision for the future state of the business that is truly compelling to your community.”

But to ensure that everyone is on board with that journey, Beard said he has focused on what he calls a “middle-down approach.”

“What we believe is most people look to their immediate manager for that kind of emotional touchpoint, how they should think about what’s happening in the broader organization,” he said. “We really focus on those first two or three layers of management, winning them over with our compelling vision for the future, but then also equipping them with the tools that allow them to convey that vision and strategy with confidence.”

“You can see the CEO at a town hall or the CEO can come to your location, but immediately you’re going to look to your immediate manager and say, ‘What do we think about that?” he said. “Equipping them to say, ‘we’re all in for the following reasons,’ I think is really how you move an organization forward.”

As Adtalem continues on its AI transformation journey, Beard said he will continue leading with a focus on how these tools can drive student success, a common throughline in all of the moves the company makes.

“We are focusing our efforts on AI where we think we have the highest return opportunities, so even as the investment in AI rises as a portion of our overall tech spend, it’s the places we think we’ll get the most valuable economic return,” he said. “I can defend the enhanced spend because of the anticipated enhanced return, both for us and the student.”

Beard said he’s also finding some AI use cases in his life, whether that’s helping with his son’s math homework or expediting his own writing, or using it as a brainstorming assistant when he’s thinking about counterarguments to ideas.

“I just think it’s an incredible resource,” he said. “I haven’t done an ordinary search engine search in six or seven months, and I don’t know if I’ll even use those tools again.”