The Business Building is at 701 S. West St. The college offers undergraduate and graduate programs in areas including accounting, economics, finance, information systems, management and marketing.
The UTA College of Business has replaced its bachelor’s and master’s in business analytics with artificial intelligence for business. The change went into effect during the fall 2026 semester.
Radha Mahapatra, department chair of information systems and operations management, said that as the technology landscape continuously advances, the College of Business in return adapts to the changes by updating its curriculum. Mahapatra categorized it not as a new program replacing the old one, but as changes in program structure that are aligned with the new name.
Some of the courses’ names have changed, as well as their content. Introduction to AI for business applications is a renamed version of the introduction to business analytics course, and an ethics of artificial intelligence applications course has replaced ethical and social issues in data science. Classes like the seminar in AI for business are new additions to the degree plan
Sridhar Nerur, Goolsby-Alcon endowed chair and professor of information systems and operations management, emphasized the evolution of the AI field as data gained prominence. The primary use of technology revolving around business intelligence was to understand, visualize and diagnose what had already happened.
However, around 2013 and 2014, Nerur said, the approach began to change as the focus shifted beyond looking backward, and now, leaders within the program believe AI is the future of predictive analytics.
“Things started moving towards the future,” he said. “Looking at the rearview mirror now, you’re looking through your windshield to see what comes ahead.”
Nerur said the changes industries have seen in the last decade have been rapid, which is why he believes skill sets have to change with the marketplace.
“People are getting laid off. Why? Because of the traditional skill sets that they have. They’ve not had the opportunity to update them,” he said. “Out here, students have the opportunity to update those skills.”
Nerur said graduates with a bachelor’s in AI have a competitive advantage compared to those with a bachelor’s in data analytics.
“People may not agree; the students probably don’t see it,” he said. “But the truth is that the field has changed, the market has changed, the demands are different.”
Leslie Ortiz, a senior originally studying business analytics, is one of many students who was switched to the artificial intelligence for business program. Ortiz said her petition asks the university to mix both programs.
Leslie Ortiz, an AI for business senior who originally majored in business analytics, said everyone in the program found out about the change at the same time and that it was unexpected.
The students were informed about the renaming of their degree by the College of Business on Sept. 2 via an email from the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management. According to the email, students graduating in fall 2026 or after will have a Bachelor of Science in AI for business.
Ortiz said the feelings she and her friends felt from the email drove her to make a petition asking the college to find an alternative name for their degree. As of Sept. 22, the petition has 78 signatures.
“My petition is directly asking for them to change the name of the degree; we’re not exactly asking them to change it back to business analytics,” she said. “We just want it to be a mix of both, since that’s exactly what we were working towards.”
Amelia Rollison, another AI for business senior who originally was a business analytics major, said she is undecided about whether the change is appropriate to her career preferences.
“You could still get analytics opportunities because we’ve still learned about a lot,” Rollison said. “We had intro to analytics as one of our classes. We’ve learned data visualization, and I think knowing AI and machine learning is very helpful for analytics.”
However, she said she felt like the two topics are different things. Data analytics solves broad business problems, while AI is more specialized and narrow, Rollison said.
Nerur said he considers AI as just an evolution of ideas and thought.
“We’re not making revolutionary changes and saying everything has to be different,” he said. “We are making incremental changes, which should be to the benefit of the students, really, because we are preparing them for a world that’s changing rapidly.”
The involvement of AI in business problem-solving has increased, and UTA is not alone in the decision to incorporate it. The subject has been discussed for two years within an advisory board, made up of members from top companies in Dallas-Fort Worth, Nerur said.
Mahapatra said that not only does the new program cover foundational skill sets in programming, statistical methods and data visualization, but the College of Business is also adding courses that include generative AI and agentic AI.
Ortiz said she does not feel that the program’s new name accurately describes the coursework she has been working on.
She said although she and her peers agreed with the college that the title “AI for business” is more up to date than “business analytics,” they feel that completely changing the name is not fair to everyone.
Other colleges, like UT Dallas, have degrees with artificial intelligence and business analytics integrated into one degree plan.
“It would be more better reflection of what we’re doing, and if that’s not an option, then we would also prefer to keep the name for seniors who had already been working towards that,” Ortiz said.
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