Across industries and sectors in functions as varied as marketing, finance, operations, accounting and product development, AI is changing how business happens. Columbia Business School’s new AI in Business Initiative aims to drive the research, education and collaborations that will shape the practice of business in the AI age.
The Ai in Business Initiative, formerly known as the Digital Future Initiative, will catalyze AI-related research and teaching across CBS, powering solutions for teaching, learning and industry that bridge the gap between theory and practice, harnessing AI technology in ways that are both innovative and scalable.
"The AI in Business Initiative is a great step forward in CBS’s leadership in advancing understanding of how AI is changing business. This deeply focused initiative will help cement CBS as a leader in this space, playing a defining role in accelerating knowledge and education at the intersection of business and artificial intelligence."
- Dean Costis Maglaras, David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business
Serving as Faculty Director for the Initiative is Professor Omar Besbes, Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business in the Decision, Risk, & Operations Division. A world-class scholar whose work spans analytics, operations, decision-making under uncertainty, and AI, Omar’s leadership will ensure that CBS plays a defining role in advancing knowledge and education at the intersection of business and artificial intelligence.
"We want to make sure we’re viewing AI broadly–not as a simple technology but as a technology that is transforming businesses, and support efforts central to understanding this transformation and its implications for the workplace.
A first goal is to build an infrastructure that can help AI experts scale their efforts but also AI non-experts to engage with the technology to do research they otherwise couldn’t do. This will enable us to develop thought leadership on applied AI in business. Another goal is promoting and facilitating curriculum innovation. The most prized skills in the job market are changing, and we want to make sure we’re preparing our students in the best way possible for this new job market. That means adjusting existing classes and also introducing fundamentally new ones. The last goal is promoting exchanges between academia and industry and building this dialogue. Academics can ask longer term questions than industry is focused on, and we should build a mutually beneficial partnership between industrial partners and CBS."
- Professor Omar Besbes, Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business in the Decision, Risk, & Operations Division
