AI-Embedded Digital Tools in Business Education and Entrepreneurial Intention: Gender-Based Structural Modeling

The adoption of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technologies and information technology (IT) systems in entrepreneurship education has accelerated alongside the digital transformation of higher education. With a particular focus on gender-related disparities, this study examines how digital business modeling tools influence students’ entrepreneurial intentions. It conceptualizes digital tools along a continuum, ranging from non-AI solutions to AI-embedded and fully AI-driven systems. Data from 440 students taking part in entrepreneurial workshops using the AI-enabled digital tool KABADA served as the basis for empirical investigation. Changes in entrepreneurial intention and its key antecedents—attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control—are examined by comparing the pre-workshop and post-workshop groups using structural equation modeling. According to the findings, the KABADA workshop has a statistically significant positive indirect effect on entrepreneurial intention, which is mainly mediated by perceived behavioral control. Significant gender differences are revealed by multi-group analysis: for female students, the main factor influencing entrepreneurial intention is perceived behavioral control, while for male students, the main factor is attitude toward entrepreneurship. These results emphasize the significance of IT systems that integrate guided user engagement with AI-based analytics to improve entrepreneurial self-efficacy, especially among women.