I have a prediction: one of the biggest business acumen trends of 2025 will be large companies instructing their mid- and upper-level managers to stop being so passive and start making significant bets.

Why do I make this prediction? Because five out of the last six business acumen programs I have delivered for clients across various industries, including pharmaceuticals, high tech, chemicals, and consumer products, have requested that I develop business simulations to help participants learn about the processes and best practices of making big bets.

It’s Still a “Bet”

I always worry when a company brings a gambling term into strategic thinking. The truth of the matter is that the premise of making big bets isn’t really about taking risks and trying new things; it’s about forcing leaders to be more aggressive and to think more boldly.

The problem is that not everyone understands the potentially devastating consequences.

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The first quarter of 2025 has been one of the most challenging and volatile times for business ever. Markets are down, there is tremendous uncertainty, and we still have the raging debate of working remotely vs. working in an office. At the same time, the pressure to perform has never been higher.

One of Advantexe's largest growing areas of work during this time has been our customized coaching simulation business. We have seen a significant increase in requests for both skill-building and practice simulations in coaching, and the types of scenarios have been very complex and difficult.

A skill-building simulation scenario is a multi-layer, decision-tree situation in which the learner engages in a simulation scenario and weaves through alternatives, building the skill along the way. A practice simulation is an AI-driven conversation in which the learner practices a specific coaching skill.

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One of the most interesting and relevant things about Advantexe’s business acumen simulations is that they track all user inputs and results as they set and execute a business strategy in a learning-by-doing format. We recently conducted an intensive business acumen workshop for a group of emerging leaders, and we used AI to analyze the simulation data from more than 50 teams, each with about 5 participants. We leveraged our new and innovative machine learning tool developed by our internal AI team, which we are building into all our simulations. Our goal? To uncover trends in R&D investment and innovation focus so that we can share insights and data with our clients about the trends and culture of participants in our simulation-centric workshops. More and more, our clients are asking for training programs that help to push innovation, especially within their R&D teams.

The results were astounding! Even in a risk-free simulation, where participants could test strategies without real-world consequences, there was a strong apprehension about investing in short-term and long-term R&D. Most teams seem to prioritize short-term efficiencies and cost management to drive margins over long-term innovation and “being bold.”

So why the hesitation? Based on our data and interviews with participants, here are three thoughts and suggestions on how to address the issues we uncovered.

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In anticipation of the Presidential Memorandum on Tariffs, many of our Advantexe clients have been focused on understanding the tariffs' impacts on their business from a business acumen learning perspective.

Over the past few weeks, we have launched a “tariff wobbler” portfolio into our business simulations so leaders can prepare and learn what to do in the “real world.” A tariff wobbler is a curveball we throw at participants to see how they react. These tariff wobblers include raw material shortages, escalating COGS, lower-quality vendor options, and opportunities to expand domestic manufacturing capabilities.

The workshops have been interesting, and although we’ve only delivered the wobblers to a small number of industries (semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and automotive), we have some rich learnings to share.

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Last week, I posted an article on our blog called Beyond the Hype: How AI Enhances Learning in Business Simulations. The post focused on how Advantexe uses real AI tools and machine learning to enhance learning in business simulations. In the post, I discussed how our digital business simulations are using AI to analyze data for results and provide valuable customer feedback in bite-sized formats like AI-generated tweets to improve the learning experience. This week at a program, I saw something both scary and, to be transparent, ingenious. Participants took screenshots of their simulation results, decisions, and competitive data and fed them into ChatGPT to analyze outcomes and strategize their next moves.

Is this a brilliant move by the team for learning, or is this hurting the learning experience by taking a shortcut and diminishing the learner’s ability to think critically and learn through exploration? I thought about this for a while, and the answer isn’t so cut and dry. In this post, I'm going to look at three key aspects of how AI was used in this manner and review the positives and negatives of AI-assisted learning when using business simulations.

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