Program For Financial Studies Channel

Generative AI is revolutionizing market research by offering unprecedented ways to understand customers, assess competitors, and extend data-driven decision-making organizationally. Research with pioneering companies reveals four key opportunities: gen AI supports existing practices by making them faster and more scalable; replaces traditional methods with synthetic data that can match conventional results with greater accuracy; fills insight gaps by providing evidence for decisions previously based on intuition; and creates innovative applications like digital twins for testing customer interactions. Survey data shows 45% of market researchers already use gen AI, with most employing it to analyze transcripts and data. While acknowledging limitations around bias and representativeness, this framework helps business leaders navigate gen AI's transformative potential in gathering customer and market insights more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

Inside the global race to build the next generation of clean power with Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

President Trump’s tariffs are meant to protect American industries, but they are likely to drive up costs for consumers, hurt domestic firms, and disrupt global trade, argues Professor Shang-Jin Wei. The unintended consequences could ripple across the world economy.

In new research, Professors Dante Donati and Hortense Fong find that the brief TikTok outage in January benefited Meta as advertisers turned to its platforms to reach users. Small businesses, less able to switch, lost out.

The Corcoran Group founder and Shark Tank star shared practical strategies for building resilience and driving innovation during a presentation at Columbia Business School’s Alleycon conference.

Climate change is a significant issue for voters who are increasingly focused on how political parties balance environmental priorities with economic considerations. Gautam Gowrisankaran, a professor of economics at Columbia University, argues that a candidate who can find and clearly communicate a well-rounded approach to both will likely have an advantage.

Nobel laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz on why true freedom requires a progressive economic vision.