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.
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 sat down with Omar to get his take on what’s next for the Initiative, what his priorities are, and what rapidly changing technology may mean for MBA students and the businesses they are joining and building.
This conversation was edited for length and clarity.
Why rebrand as the AI in Business Initiative, and why now?
We want to accelerate and scale our efforts. We will build on the foundation of DFI, scale our investments in state-of-the art research initiatives in this space, and support fast curricular development. 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. The name change is a way to support the research experts across the frontier, to accelerate and scale the AI-related efforts within CBS, and to allow better external recognition of our efforts.
Through the Digital Future Initiative, CBS has already made significant strides in AI related research and innovation. How have you measured success to date?
A first measure of success pertains to MBA student engagement, and there the number and quality of high profile events has been exceptional. A second measure of success pertains to making CBS a place of exchanges between practitioners and academics. Finally, I also measure success in projects that were able to scale thanks to DFI . We’ve had significant curriculum innovation such as CAiSEY, an innovation in the classroom that enables us to leverage AI for better student preparation engagement. On the research front, the digital twins initiative or the AI agents initiative are examples of projects that received support to scale. This is the type of thing where we see promise and we’re able to scale because of the Initiative.
We want Columbia to be a hub on the East Coast for AI and its interfaces with business. DFI allowed us to strengthen our position as the place where these types of conversations take place. We want to prepare students for new opportunities – to understand the tech but also to see how it can be deployed and help them to identify business opportunities before others do.
What is the goal now?
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.
We’re trying to be more intentional about the things that we do. Columbia has always been an exceptional place in terms of research and teaching innovation. We want to push the link to practice much faster and put the research into context – for an outside audience as well as students, prospective students, alumni. We want to get the excitement out.
AI inspires fears as well as imaginations. What do you see as the role of AIB in navigating that tension?
This is both a very exciting time and a time of high uncertainty. We can play the role of an objective player, presenting all the facets of these questions and bringing together the believers, the investors and also the people who have concerns–whether those are ethical concerns or other societal concerns. We want to have students engage with all sides of these questions; we want students to be exposed to those views and form their own opinions.
The MBA role is an important one given the way the world is changing. The skills of our MBA students position them very well for this job market because those skills are anchored around critical thinking, business acumen and networking. Having an understanding of the technology combined with these skills gives you an advantage in the job market.
What are you most excited about?
The AI space is fascinating and it is hard to keep up with everything. Within our own walls, we should not forget that one of the areas that will be deeply affected by AI in the years to come is our area of education, both pushing us to rethink pedagogy and content. Otherwise, personally, I have done research on various facets of ecommerce over the years, and I'm excited about the transformation this ecosystem is going to go through from the buyers and sellers to the platforms and advertisers. What is the ecosystem going to look like a few years from now? More generally, I think it’s exciting to be in a place that has so many colleagues working on AI-related topics and so many students who are highly invested in this space as well. Events are packed, students are so engaged–we are working together to harness this transformative technology, and that’s energizing.
