As a Generative AI Teaching Fellow, Guneet Kaur Nagpal is leading a new Ivey pilot that gives students hands-on experience with agentic artificial intelligence (AI), helping them to move from passive users to informed innovators. Through a new classroom simulation, she’s unpacking the inner workings of AI tools to show students how these systems operate behind the scenes.
"Business school graduates are an important bridge between data‑science teams and business commercial units; by peeking behind the curtain of agentic workflows, they can turn high‑level strategy into concrete technical specs and vice-versa,” says Kaur Nagpal.
Kaur Nagpal, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Ivey, is one of three professors appointed as Western University’s first Generative AI Teaching Fellows. The recognition comes with a grant that allows her to bring her research to life in the classroom through the development of an agentic AI tool.
"Generative models like ChatGPT have already entered the mainstream, but the next frontier is quickly shifting toward agentic AI, the networks of autonomous agents that coordinate multiple models, APIs, and data streams to pursue a goal end‑to‑end,” explains Kaur Nagpal.
Companies across industries are already wiring up bespoke agentic stacks to compress cycle times across functions, including marketing, operations, and human resources. With the Fellowship, Kaur Nagpal is probing how the same architectures could re‑shape new product/brand analyses and investor decisions.
A simulation built for real-world learning
Piloted in her Digital Marketing Analytics course in the HBA program, the tool will pull data from credible sources – like LinkedIn, regulatory filings, and public market information – and synthesize it into accessible reports for startups. Kaur Nagpal said a novice investor would otherwise need to spend significant time manually gathering and analyzing this data. The simulation exercise, which also includes a prompt engineering module, allows students to focus on evaluating insights, not just finding them.
This simulation will analyze real companies on platforms like Wefunder, not fictional brands, increasing the relevance and impact of the learning. Students will also be able to modify the inputs and observe how the outcomes change – essentially, go behind the black box and understand how an agentic AI tool works.
"The business professionals often do not understand the technical aspects of AI. Real strength in the workplace comes when they understand the AI black boxes better, so they are better-equipped at making the best use of them,” she said. “I want my students to feel confident about using artificial intelligence and not look at it like a fancy tool that they can just use for generating quick reports. I want them to understand not only the complexities of it, but also the breadth of things it can do.”
Research to inform AI practice
In parallel, Kaur Nagpal is conducting research on how decision-makers perceive reports generated by AI versus human experts. The project is in the theory-building stage and is expected to roll out in the fall.
Although the simulation will launch in her classroom and be refined annually based on student feedback and learning outcomes, Kaur Nagpal sees potential for broader application. She said the model could be adapted for other domains where complex decision-making is critical, such as finance, communications, and even administrative departments at Western University. She also hopes the classroom learning might help to shape institutional best practices around the use of AI.
Equipping students for a tech-driven future
For now, Kaur Nagpal’s focus remains on empowering students with AI confidence and competence. She plans to evaluate the project’s success by measuring students’ understanding of and comfort with using agentic AI.
“Once you enter the workplace, learning about AI becomes more difficult and expensive. I believe educational institutions should equip students to gain a fundamental understanding of these tools,” she said. “The more confident and knowledgeable they are about AI now, the better-equipped they’ll be in the workplace.”
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