USC’s Marshall School of Business
As artificial intelligence reshapes the workplace and employers put a premium on graduates who can work across functions, USC’s Marshall School of Business is launching two new undergraduate minors for students from across the university.
Marshall will launch minors in Applied AI and Business and Product Management this fall. Both will be open to USC undergraduates regardless of major, extending business training to students in fields ranging from engineering and communications to film, healthcare, and the arts.
The programs reflect a broader push among business schools to make emerging business skills more accessible across campus — particularly as AI becomes embedded in jobs well beyond traditional technology roles.
“The Applied AI and Business minor is an interdisciplinary approach to bring all of our students together,” says Inge Lindholm, assistant professor of clinical data sciences and operations and faculty lead for the AI minor.
“This is an opportunity to bring human ingenuity and artificial intelligence to real-world business challenges.”
BUILDING AI LITERACY FOR ANY MAJOR
The Applied AI minor is designed to prepare students to use the technology as managers, entrepreneurs, collaborators, and decision-makers. Its curriculum will examine AI’s role in business strategy, entrepreneurship, digital media and communications, product management, leadership, and responsible technology use.
Marshall, which ranked fifth in Poets&Quants’ 2026 undergraduate business school ranking, is betting that those skills will become increasingly relevant regardless of the industry they ultimately work. Students will work in interdisciplinary teams. For example, a film student may work alongside finance and communications students on the same project, Lindholm says. One may focus on creating content, another on return on investment, and another on how the product or idea should be communicated. AI becomes a tool linking those different disciplines rather than a subject studied in isolation.
“We understand that artificial intelligence does not work in a silo, but rather in conjunction and collaboration with our students,” Lindholm says.
The emphasis also reflects an increasingly common challenge for universities. Technical tools are changing faster than degree programs can reasonably be redesigned. Rather than focusing only on specific platforms, Marshall wants students to develop the judgment to understand when and how AI should be deployed.
FROM FINDING CUSTOMERS TO PRODUCT LAUNCH
Marshall’s second new minor focuses on another increasingly cross-functional field, product management.
The 16-credit Product Management minor will teach students how to identify customer and market needs, develop product strategy, prioritize features, align teams, measure results, and bring products to market.
Courses will cover customer discovery, product requirements, agile execution, stakeholder management, metrics, go-to-market planning, and AI applications.
Gordon Ho, professor of the practice in management and organization and faculty lead for the minor, says the program was built around the reality that employers often want aspiring product managers to arrive with experience already under their belts.
“A lot of companies really want previous product management or product-relevant experience,” Ho says.
Marshall plans to give students some of that experience through team projects in which they actually develop, launch, and test products.
The curriculum will draw from several parts of Marshall, including management and organization, marketing, entrepreneurship, data sciences and operations, and business communications. Students will also be able to take electives through USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering and the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy.
A BUSINESS MINOR BUILT ACROSS USC
Like the AI minor, Product Management is intentionally designed for students outside the business school.
Ho argues that USC is particularly suited for that approach because of its mix of programs in technology, entertainment, healthcare, media, and entrepreneurship. These are all fields where product development increasingly requires people with very different expertise to work together.
Product managers frequently sit at the intersection of engineering, design, marketing, research, and business strategy. That makes communication and leadership just as important as technical knowledge.
“One of the key components that we try to stress is the role that you have to play in aligning teams,” Ho says. “How do you connect people across different disciplines?”
Marshall also plans to tap USC’s alumni network for the program, bringing in speakers from companies including Disney, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Fanatics.
Ho developed the minor with Nan Jia, chair of Marshall’s Department of Management and Organization and the Capt. Henry W. Simonsen Chair in Strategic Entrepreneurship. Both have already taught product management to students from multiple USC schools. The new minor formalizes that work into a structured program.
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