Signal When AI Wears Many Hats: The Role of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing Education

Summary

Unnati Narang, Vishal Sachdev, and Ruichun Liu published a paper on arXiv (cs.CY) on August 4, 2026, examining how generative AI (GAI) is reshaping marketing education through a multipronged analysis combining a review of marketing course syllabi, a survey of marketing educators, and follow-up qualitative interviews. Building on Role Theory and the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model, the authors propose that GAI can assume three roles in marketing education: tutor, teammate, and tool, each of which influences teaching, social, and cognitive presence differently and shapes the learning experience. As a tutor, GAI can help students grasp theoretical concepts, while as a teammate it can foster collaboration by supporting brainstorming and problem-solving activities. The authors emphasize that ethical considerations including data privacy, plagiarism, dependency on AI, and fairness in assessment must be addressed for responsible adoption. The paper provides concrete examples for integrating GAI into marketing courses and discusses implications for educators, learners, and policymakers.