AI is transforming negotiation training for the next global leaders

When Denis Leclerc, professor of cross cultural communication and global negotiations at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, first taught negotiation skills to graduate students, he would spend hours listening in on role plays, watching for every shift in tone, stray word or missed opportunity. After each session, he’d deliver pointed, personal feedback. For a small class, this was powerful.

But at Thunderbird, where classes today reach hundreds of students from every continent, Leclerc knew that approach wouldn’t scale forever.

“There are just too many students now to sit in on every pair’s negotiation,” Leclerc said. “And the stakes for mastering this skill are only getting higher.”

Negotiation is no longer reserved for high-level boardrooms. It’s embedded in supply chains, vendor agreements, everyday conversations between people and, increasingly, machines.

Thunderbird, long known for producing global leaders fluent in cross-cultural management, saw an opportunity to reinvent how this essential soft skill is taught.

Instead of sticking with lectures, prep exercises and broad debriefs, Leclerc envisioned something more practical and immediate: an AI-powered training tool that places students inside live, realistic negotiation simulations.

That vision evolved into the Digital Negotiation Assistant (DNA), an interactive platform that mimics real negotiation scenarios, holds up under the pressure of real conversation, and then grades students on how well they handle themselves.

“It fixes a huge gap,” Leclerc explained. “Every great program teaches you how to prepare. They tell you what questions to ask and how to find win-win solutions. But what about the negotiation itself? The messy middle is where people struggle most, and that’s where this tool lives.”

The Digital Negotiation Assistant lets students practice live, spoken negotiation with an AI partner that can respond in real time, shifting tactics and tone just as a real human would. It captures each exchange, analyzes language choices and strategy, and delivers a tailored scorecard moments after the final handshake.

For Thunderbird students, that means instant, personalized feedback, and unlimited chances to try again.

“They don’t have to wait for me to read a transcript or for me to generalize in a lecture,” Leclerc noted. “They see exactly where they hesitated, what questions they missed, or where they failed to hold firm on pricing. Then they can fix it, and try again.”

The assistant breaks negotiation into measurable skills: clear communication, problem-solving, framing questions and identifying common ground. Students see how they scored on each, pinpoint where they need work, and refine their approach session by session.

Bringing the DNA to life took a campus-wide push.

Thunderbird’s Innovation and Learning Experience team, led by Mike Grasso, senior director of digital initiatives, guided the development to ensure the tool didn’t just look modern but fit Thunderbird’s teaching mission.

“Our job was to connect Professor Leclerc’s deep academic research with the best technology,” Grasso said. “It had to be engaging, scalable and robust enough to handle dozens, maybe hundreds, of students negotiating at the same time.”

The school partnered with TARIY Inc., whose AI expertise helped refine the tool’s conversation engine. The result is more than a standard chatbot. The Digital Negotiation Assistant listens to spoken input, replies in a clear, human-like voice and adapts as students test different negotiation strategies. Its real-time dashboard tracks each student’s concessions, tone shifts and tactics, transforming every conversation into a live coaching session.

Beyond the classroom, the skills students build with the assistant reflect the reality of business today. Major corporations have already begun shifting human-to-human deals into AI-powered platforms.

Leclerc points to companies like Walmart, which uses AI negotiation systems to handle massive volumes of supplier contracts faster and more consistently than human buyers alone.

“Your first negotiation with Walmart might not be with a person at all,” Leclerc noted. “You might be negotiating terms with a digital procurement agent. If students don’t learn to communicate precisely, they risk getting outmaneuvered by a machine that has no emotions, only algorithms.”

This means Thunderbird’s next generation of leaders won’t just learn how to negotiate face-to-face across cultures, but how to adapt when the other party is an AI with no bias, no small talk and no tolerance for vague language.

Leclerc also sees the Digital Negotiation Assistant as a way to level the playing field for students from diverse backgrounds.

“When people negotiate with each other, subtle biases slip in. Maybe it’s how someone pronounces words, maybe it’s an accent, maybe it’s cultural misunderstanding,” he said. “The bot removes that noise. It measures your words and strategy, not how you look or sound.”

And because the tool can handle multiple languages, it empowers Thunderbird’s international student body to practice in the language they’re strongest in. That builds confidence and skills before moving to English or another target market’s language.

The DNA is a flagship example of Thunderbird’s commitment to innovate at the intersection of global business, digital transformation and intercultural fluency.

Although the assistant was stress-tested in Thunderbird classrooms throughout 2024 and formally launched in 2025, conversations are underway to take it beyond the school. Leclerc and Thunderbird leaders are exploring partnerships through ASU SkySong, Arizona State University’s innovation hub, to scale the tool for other academic programs and even private companies.

“It’s bigger than a class project,” Leclerc shared. “It could become a business license for companies to train their sales teams. It’s a way to build mastery, not just run through slides.”

DNA is a nod to the core of Thunderbird’s mission: giving students the practical skills and technological fluency to lead globally, lead digitally, and lead interculturally.

“It shows what Thunderbird does best,” Leclerc said. “We combine rigorous business education, deep cultural awareness, and now smart technology to help students master what they’ll need out there in the real world.”