Business
New Survey Finds Employers Keen on Hiring Business School Graduates as AI Integration Accelerates
GMAC’s latest corporate recruiters survey sends promising signal to recent graduates.
RESTON, Va., July 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Even as employers report ongoing influence of inflation, recession fears, and country leaders on their hiring decisions, recent business school graduates can remain optimistic about their career prospects, buoyed by the accelerating integration of artificial intelligence (AI) across the modern business landscape. According to the latest annual survey of global corporate recruiters released today by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), problem-solving and strategic thinking remain the top skills employers desire today and tomorrow. In addition, new hires’ knowledge of using AI tools has risen measurably in its current importance in the average employer’s mind since last year, and it tops the list of the skills employers value the most five years from now.
“As AI becomes more integral in a company’s decision-making and strategy development, employers continue to turn to business school graduates for their versatility and strategic thinking, along with growing appreciation for their ability to innovate and navigate the challenges and opportunities of technological disruption,” says Joy Jones, CEO at GMAC. “I give kudos to business schools’ intentional cultivation of these relevant skills in their students, who stand out even more as valuable contributors and future leaders in the ever-evolving business world.”
This year’s survey was conducted with a total of 1,108 corporate recruiters and hiring managers—nearly two thirds of them with Global Fortune 500 companies—participating from organizations and staffing firms in 46 countries.
Key findings to note for business school graduates and aspirants
- Positive employer perceptions of business education: An overwhelming 99% of global employers express confidence in business schools’ ability to prepare graduates for success within their organizations. Moreover, nearly two-thirds affirm that the skills gained through a graduate business degree are more critical than ever, as companies increasingly adopt emerging tech.
- The enduring and rising importance of human skills in the modern workforce: more than half of global employers cite the value of communication skills in their hiring decisions, with employers also valuing candidates’ emotional intelligence and adaptability in their current and future hiring decisions.
- Growing employer confidence with increasing flexibility in work and study: 56% of global employers agree or strongly agree that the skills gained through a business degree are more important than before for businesses using remote or hybrid working arrangements; roughly the same percentage (55%) also agree or strongly agree that they value graduates of online or predominantly online and in-person programs equally.
- New “Gen Z” hires’ professionalism demystified—somewhat—by employers: 61% of corporate recruiters find recent GME graduates to demonstrate the same level of professionalism—such as reliability, respectfulness, or professional appearance—as graduates from previous years. However, roughly a quarter of the more client-facing consulting and health care/pharmaceutical recruiters disagree.
- Hiring projection spotlighting popularity of generalist business degrees: 76% of global employers predict that they will hire about the same or more newly minted MBA graduates in 2025 compared to 2024. In fact, 90% of them plan to hire talent with an MBA—even more than prospective employees with bachelor’s degrees or those coming directly from other organizations.
“As flexibility in work and learning becomes a norm, business school graduates—with degrees or credentials earned in-person or remotely—should feel empowered that their employability continues to outperform those without an advanced management degree, especially when they understand and underscore how they are skilled in strategic thinking, problem-solving, and communications alongside technological savvy,” says Christine Murray, associate dean & managing director of McDonough Career Center at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.
For more than two decades, the Corporate Recruiters Survey has provided the world’s graduate business schools and employers with data and insights to understand current trends in skill demand, hiring, compensation, and perceptions of MBA and business master’s graduates. GMAC conducted this year’s survey, together with survey partners European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and the Career Services and Employer Alliance (CSEA), from January to March 2025. To learn more about other key findings from GMAC’s 2025 Corporate Recruiters Survey, please visit gmac.com.
About GMAC
The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) is a mission-driven association of leading graduate business schools worldwide. GMAC provides world-class research, industry conferences, recruiting tools, and assessments for the graduate management education industry as well as resources, events, and services that help guide candidates through their higher education journey. Owned and administered by GMAC, the Graduate Management Admission Test™ (GMAT™) exam is the most widely used graduate business school assessment.
More than 13 million prospective students a year trust GMAC’s websites, including mba.com, to learn about MBA and business master’s programs, connect with schools around the world, prepare and register for exams and get advice on successfully applying to MBA and business master’s programs. BusinessBecause and GMAC Tours are subsidiaries of GMAC, a global organization with offices in China, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
To learn more about our work, please visit www.gmac.com
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Business
Capgemini to buy WNS to boost its business process services with AI – Computerworld
For Gartner vice president analyst DD Mishra, WNS’s investments in intelligent automation, analytics, and agentic solutions including its TRAC analytics suite and Malkom knowledge management platform will complement Capgemini’s existing technology and consulting strengths.
Sharath Srinivasamurthy, research vice president at IDC, pointed to the acquisitions WNS has itself made in recent months, including Kipi.ai, Smart Cube, and OptiBuy to enhance its data, analytics, and procurement stack and extend its proficiency in business process operations, said.
However, Rajesh Ranjan, managing partner at Everest Group, views the WNS acquisition as more of a strategic play rather than being focused on garnering more agentic tools or capabilities.
Business
Locafy Launches AI-Powered SEO Suite Targeting 40M Business Market

Locafy’s AI Search Platform Powers Visibility Across Organic and AI Search
New Product Lineup Tailored to Local, National, and e-Commerce Businesses
AI-Powered Tools Designed to Automate Engagement and Accelerate Online Presence
PERTH, Australia, July 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Locafy Limited (NASDAQ: LCFY, “Locafy”), a globally recognized leader in location-based digital marketing, today unveiled its FY26 suite of AI-powered SEO products. These solutions, now commercially available following successful market testing, are designed to deliver measurable improvements across organic, AI, and marketplace search results.
Locafy initially outlined its AI-powered publishing roadmap in December 2024, promising to streamline content production and improve cost-effective online visibility for businesses.
“We are excited to announce that we’ve delivered on that promise,” said Gavin Burnett, CEO of Locafy.
All of Locafy’s publishing and SEO products are designed to drive visibility in search engines and, increasingly, AI-driven search tools and marketplaces. Recent research shows these optimizations extend across both traditional and emerging search platforms.
“We’ve evolved our technology to influence not only search engine rankings but also AI search results,” said Burnett. “Our platform helps position our clients’ websites as authoritative sources for high-value keywords, across local, national, and e-commerce campaigns.”
Burnett added, “We’ve also automated the creation of AI-search-ready landing pages, opening up a greenfield opportunity for scaled monetization. Our U.S. directory includes more than 9.68 million direct business listings, and our citation management partners publish more than 28 million business listings across our directories. Each of these represents either a direct sales opportunity or a chance to collaborate with partners using the data we already publish on their behalf.”
Locafy is focused on three primary solution categories:
- Online Business Listings
- Local SEO
- AI-powered engagement tools
Online Business Listings
Locafy continues to assert that online business listings form the cornerstone of successful Local SEO. These listings supply structured data that fuels automated SEO product generation. Locafy currently publishes more than 9.5 million listings in the U.S. and remains focused on partnerships with citation management firms and multi-location businesses. It is also exploring acquisitions of databases, directories, and citation management assets.
The Total Addressable Market (TAM) for the Local SEO solution in their key target markets of USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK is more than 40 million businesses.
“We currently host more than 63 million business listings worldwide, of which more than 40 million are in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the UK,” said Burnett. “However, our direct sales opportunity is more than 11.4 million, plus we have more than 28 million listings that we publish on behalf of partners, who can now connect to our Platform to automate the production of our Local SEO products for their clients.”
Country | Partner Added* | Claimed* |
Australia | 2,145,707 | 652,351 |
Canada | 1,533,479 | 289,274 |
United Kingdom | 3,458,205 | 802,003 |
United States of America | 33,076,154 | 9,684,329 |
TOTAL | 40,213,545 | 11,427,957 |
Local SEO
The flagship solution, Localizer, integrates listing syndication, AI-search optimization, review management, and Google Map Pack enhancement.
“We haven’t seen another product that combines these capabilities—at a price point starting around
AI-powered Engagement Tools
In addition to improving search visibility, Locafy has developed a scalable, cost-effective AI Voice Concierge that can serve as a virtual receptionist, product expert, or customer service agent.
“This is our first step into AI-enabled customer engagement,” said Burnett. “Our Voice Concierge acts like a digital team member—it can take bookings, provide answers, and interact 24/7. Just feed it your business documents and it learns. We record and transcribe every interaction, giving clients full transparency.
“This kind of capability once felt like science fiction, but it’s here now—and Locafy is helping businesses adapt and thrive in an AI-powered world.”
Over the past six months, Locafy has streamlined its product suite, automated key production processes, and validated product performance through live testing. With this foundation in place, the Company is poised for commercial growth in FY2026.
While the company still offers solutions for National SEO and e-Commerce, it believes the immediate opportunity afforded by its breakthroughs in AI Search represents a larger and more scalable revenue opportunity with far greater automation already in place.
About Locafy
Locafy (Nasdaq: LCFY, LCFYW) is a globally recognized software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology company specializing in local search engine marketing. Founded in 2009, Locafy’s mission is to revolutionize the US
Investor Relations Contact:
Matt Glover
Gateway Group, Inc.
(949) 574-3860
LCFY@gateway-grp.com
Business
Apple appeals against ‘unprecedented’ €500m EU fine over app store | Apple
Apple has launched an appeal against an “unprecedented” €500m (£430m) fine imposed by the EU on the company, in the latest clash between US tech companies and Brussels.
The iPhone maker accused the European Commission – the EU’s executive arm – of going “far beyond what the law requires” in a dispute over its app store.
In April, the commission fined Apple €500m after finding the company had breached the Digital Markets Act by preventing app developers from steering users to cheaper deals outside the app store.
Last month, Apple overhauled its app store rules to comply with the EU order to scrap its technical and commercial curbs on developers in order to avoid fines of 5% of its average daily worldwide revenue, or about €50m a day.
As a result Apple introduced new fee structures for developers using its app store. On Monday, Apple accused Brussels of making it deploy “confusing” business terms in order to avoid the threat of fines.
“Today we filed our appeal because we believe the European Commission’s decision – and their unprecedented fine – go far beyond what the law requires,” said Apple, announcing an appeal to the general court, the second highest court in the EU. “As our appeal will show, the EC is mandating how we run our store and forcing business terms which are confusing for developers and bad for users.”
Apple also accused the commission of unlawfully expanding the definition of “steering” – or the language and methods the company allows developers to use when guiding consumers outside its app stores.
The company said officials on Brussels had changed the definition by, for instance, not just focusing on whether app developers should be allowed to link to an external website, but also on whether developers should be permitted to promote offers inside an app.
Donald Trump’s senior trade adviser, Peter Navarro, has accused the EU of using “lawfare” against big US tech companies, describing the use of regulations against American companies such as Apple and Meta as part of a barrage of “non-tariff weapons” used for by foreign states against the US.
Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission vice-president responsible for tech sovereignty, said in April that the EU will not rip up its tech rules in an attempt to agree a trade deal with the US. In January, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of the Facebook owner Meta, accused the EU of “institutionalising censorship” via its digital rules.
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Trump has set a 9 July deadline to seal a trade deal with the bloc – with the threat of imposing a 50% tariff on EU imports into the US if agreement is not reached.
Tom Smith, a competition lawyer at Geradin Partners and a former legal director at the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, said Apple “fundamentally hates” attempts to change its app store.
“The blunt truth is that it is worth spending a few million on legal fees in order to disrupt and delay the development of a more open app ecosystem, which is a market that is worth many billions a year to Apple,” he said.
The European Commission has been approached for comment.
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