Re-Imagining Marketing Education for Career Readiness in the GenAI Era

This study aims to examine how to integrate generative AI (GenAI) into marketing education. We used the transformation mechanism within boundary crossing theory to explore how marketing professional insights can be utilized to prepare students for industry demands in the GenAI era. We analyze industry content and GenAI courses alongside 26 interviews with industry practitioners to identify essential knowledge, skillsets, and optimal strategies for implementing GenAI in marketing curricula. Findings underscore the necessity of equipping students with GenAI skills for marketing research, strategy development, content creation, creativity, and ideation across use cases. Practitioners emphasized that marketing theory and ethics should be centralized in any GenAI-related subject matter. For educators, the study highlights the importance of involving industry partners, integrating external materials, and offering master classes to ensure students develop practical skills alongside theoretical knowledge. This research contributes to the discourse on GenAI in marketing education by providing use-cases and actionable insights into subject design, ensuring alignment with industry expectations and equipping students with necessary competencies for a GenAI-driven marketing environment. We extend the application of Boundary Crossing theory into marketing education literature by theorizing how transformation deepens and operates bidirectionally in the context of disruptive technologies, such as GenAI.