Can AI Simulations Prepare Future Consultants? Georgetown Students Tackle a Five-Prompt Challenge

The AI, Analytics, and the Future of Work Initiative at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business hosted the Five-Prompt Challenge, bringing together students for a hands-on competition designed to build practical skills in AI-enabled analysis and executive-style communication.

The competition challenged both graduate and undergraduate students to solve a real-world business case using generative AI, with a strict limit of five prompts per team. Working in groups of up to seven students and restricted to a single laptop, participants had 45 minutes to develop a solution before delivering a five-minute presentation. The format required teams to think carefully about how they used AI to structure problems and prioritize what mattered most in a consulting environment.

“As AI continues to reshape industries, opportunities like this allow students to build not only familiarity with new tools, but also the judgment and communication skills needed to use them effectively,” said Alberto Rossi, director of the Future of Work Initiative and Hachigan Family Professor of Finance. “Through initiatives like ours, Georgetown McDonough continues to create learning environments that connect classroom concepts with real-world application, equipping students to navigate complexity, adapt to new technologies, and lead with clarity and purpose in their careers.”

Rather than focusing on technical expertise alone, the Five-Prompt Challenge emphasized judgment. Students evaluated trade-offs, tested assumptions, and translated AI-generated outputs into clear, actionable recommendations. Presentations were judged by attendees at the event on strategic rigor, completeness, and clarity: reinforcing the importance of communicating insights effectively under time constraints.

The event was organized in collaboration with Tower Strategy Group, a management consulting firm working with Fortune 500 companies, private equity firms, and government agencies. As part of the event, the firm’s founder and managing director Saurabh Kapoor and members of the company demonstrated fu.sion AI, the firm’s proprietary platform featuring more than 30 specialized AI agents designed to support consulting workflows. 

During the demonstration, Kapoor described how AI tools are already reshaping consulting practices, streamlining processes that once took weeks into hours and reducing multi-hour strategy sessions into significantly shorter, more focused engagements. The platform illustrated how firms are beginning to build what he described as an “AI-native” approach to problem-solving, where AI is not just a support tool, but an integrated starting point for generating and testing ideas.

Students applied these concepts directly during the competition, using large language models such as ChatGPT and Claude to analyze the case and develop recommendations. The structure encouraged participants to experiment with how AI could support different types of business challenges, including growth strategy and operational decision-making.

The winners of this challenge were Sam Andrzejewski (C’27), Khalia Burke (MBA’26), Nick Citarella (B’26), Sasha DiMare (B’28), Sarah Markuson (B’28), and Abhishek Saigal (MBA’26). Their project stood out by delivering a coherent and compelling strategic recommendation for Tower Strategy Group.

Open to all Georgetown students, the competition required no prior experience in AI or analytics, reinforcing the initiative’s goal to make emerging technologies accessible across disciplines. The event created space for students with a wide range of academic backgrounds to engage with AI in a practical, applied setting.