The start of a new year is a symbolic clean slate. It’s a chance to embrace fresh opportunities, set ambitious goals, and imagine what lies ahead.

It’s also a great time to pause for a moment of reflection. Before diving headfirst into the demands of work, school, or life’s daily rhythm, we can appreciate the journey we’ve traveled over the past year. It’s a chance to celebrate our achievements, reflect on the lessons learned and challenges faced, and carry forward the wisdom we’ve gained.

So, before we launch full steam ahead into the new year, let’s take a look back at some of the most compelling and memorable stories that defined 2024 on EmoryBusiness.com.

Welcoming Impressive Inaugural Classes to Two New Programs

Meet the Inaugural Cohort of Goizueta’s New Master in Management Program

One of Goizueta Business School’s newest additions is the Master in Management degree, a program for recent college graduates with liberal arts and science majors. Spanning 10 months, the program acts as a “fast track” option for students to gain business skills to complement their undergraduate work. Among the inaugural cohort, 38% graduated from an Emory University program, with a total of 84% of the class graduating from their undergraduate programs in 2024.

Meet the First Cohort of Goizueta’s New Master in Business for Veterans

Goizueta Business School launched a new graduate degree last year, and the first cohort of students started in May. The Master in Business for Veterans program is led by Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General and Associate Dean for Leadership Ken Keen. The inaugural cohort of this working professional program includes 31 students. Among them are two Air Force, 19 Army, five Marines, and five Navy veterans and active duty service members. These men and women have decorated and accomplished backgrounds, including several careers of service to the United States.

Experiential Learning Opportunities Abound

MBA Students Explore Denmark’s Model for Work and Well-being

This summer, more than 25 MBA students from Goizueta Business School ventured out of the classroom and across the globe, traveling to Copenhagen, Denmark to explore how the Danes approach their short work week (standard 37 hours), while having some of the most productive companies in the world. The immersive experience is part of a new course at Goizueta, Life Design for the Modern MBA, focused on helping Goizueta students—who are passionate, ambitious, and often working in overdrive—to find meaning and fulfillment in both career and life.

Team Building with Taste: Lessons in Leadership from the Kitchen

At first, Yaqi Liu 26BBA wasn’t keen about getting up early on a Saturday to cook. But over the course of the day, Liu changed his mind. “It was a really good experience,” he says. That experience is called “Team Building with Taste.” It’s a cooking competition in the style of Bravo network’s “Top Chef,” except with the ultimate goal of improving team dynamics. The challenge is a part of the undergraduate BBA program’s Team Dynamics and Leadership class. Over multiple weekends this fall, student teams were given a $50 budget, a set time to plan and shop, and one hour to cook and plate their meals. The teams then presented their dishes to a panel of judges.

How HackATL Fosters Future Changemakers

A lot can happen in 48 hours. For Selina Kao 27BBA, that was the turnaround time afforded her team at this October’s HackATL competition. Their mission? Transform a fledgling business idea into an actionable plan. Hosted by The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, this year’s event—powered by a dynamic collaboration between InnovATL, the City of Atlanta and the center—brought together more than 300 students from across the Southeast. After two days of frenetic brainstorming, building, and pitching transformative start-up initiatives to a panel of judges, the top teams took home over $13K in prizes.

Accomplished Alumni Create Meaningful Impact

Goizueta’s Veterans: Meet Matt Smith

In February 2025, Matt Smith 01MBA will retire as a two-star major general for the U.S. Army. His story is unique because of its many twists and turns. Smith joined the Army in college, before heading to the corporate world in Atlanta in the late 90s and enrolling in Goizueta Business School’s MBA program. However, it wasn’t long before Smith realized that the military was where he was meant to be. He resumed active duty for the Army in 2019, and in December 2022, he stepped into his current role as commander of the Joint Task Force – North. His team has helped federal agencies with interdepartmental coordination and assisted U.S. Border Patrol when they needed additional observation help. Smith says the skills he gained from earning an MBA have helped set him apart as a military leader. Now he’s he’s giving voice to Goizueta’s veterans as part of the advisory board for the new Master in Business for Veterans program.

Meet Marnie Harris: Building Hotels with Purpose

When Marnie Harris 20MBA was an undergraduate biomedical engineering student, she dreamed of building a more accessible world. Harris helped found The Excel Program at Georgia Tech, a certificate program for students with intellectual disabilities. When Harris graduated, she stayed on to welcome the first cohort of Excel students. But she soon came to believe that creating meaningful employment for this demographic must begin inside business, where the jobs are. So, Harris enrolled in Goizueta Business School’s MBA program, where she received the Woodruff Scholarship, Emory’s most prestigious named scholarship, awarded to Emory applicants who want to make a positive social impact. Now, Harris serves as the director of business and marketing strategy at Pavilion Development Company. There, she’s developing and franchising the Shepherd Hotels brand, which focuses on employing staff with intellectual disabilities.

Holistic Health Starts at Home: Meet Kyle Brown

After enrolling in the One-Year MBA program at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, Kyle Brown 20MBA became interested in holistic living and the various ways cannabidiol (CBD) could improve one’s health. Brown soon teamed up with his aunt, an expert gardener and advocate of natural medicine, who had long been growing her own herbs for healthful teas. The duo developed a series of CBD tea formulas, and ultimately launched their brick-and-mortar cannabis bar Bookstore Gallery. While its products assist in pain management on an individual level, Bookstore Gallery leads the charge of healing on a community level. Brown’s holistic healing mission comes to life through diverse events, including therapy-focused happy hours, game nights, tailgates, spoken word poetry, men’s mental health meetups, and creative outlets like “Puff and Paint.”

Groundbreaking Research from Goizueta’s Brightest Minds

Mitigating Bias in AI: Sharing the Burden of Bias When it Counts Most

From directions on Google Maps to job recommendations on LinkedIn, by now, we’ve all grown accustomed to AI systems’ integration in nearly every aspect of our daily lives. But are AI systems fair? The answer to this question, in short—not completely. Fortunately, some dedicated data scientists are working around the clock to tackle this big issue. One of those data scientists is Gareth James, who also serves as the Dean of Goizueta Business School as his day job. In a recent paper titled “A Burden Shared is a Burden Halved: A Fairness-Adjusted Approach to Classification” Dean James—along with coauthors Bradley Rava, Wenguang Sun, and Xin Tong—have proposed a new framework to help ensure AI decision-making is as fair as possible in high-stakes decisions where certain individuals—for example, racial minority groups and other protected groups—may be more prone to AI bias, even without our realizing it. 

Hiring More Nurses Generates Revenue for Hospitals

Underfunding is driving an acute shortage of trained nurses in hospitals and care facilities in the United States. American nurses are quitting in droves, and that’s bad news for patient outcomes. For beleaguered administrators looking to sustain quality of care while minimizing costs (and maximizing profits), hiring and retaining nursing staff has arguably become something of a zero-sum game in the U.S. But could there be potential financial losses attached to nurse understaffing that administrators should factor into their hiring and remuneration decisions? Research by Goizueta Professors Diwas KC and Donald Lee, as well as recent Goizueta PhD graduates Hao Ding 24PhD (Auburn University) and Sokol Tushe 23PhD (Muma College of Business), would suggest there are.

Training Innovative AI to Provide Expert Guidance on Prescription Medications

A new wave of medications meant to treat Type II diabetes is grabbing headlines around the world for their ability to help people lose a significant amount of weight. The two big names that come to mind are Ozempic and Wegovy. However, both medications come with a host of side effects, and are not suitable for every patient. Many clinics and physicians—particularly in smaller communities—do not have immediate access to expert second opinions needed to make decisions about prescription medications such as these. That’s one of the reasons Karl Kuhnert is using artificial intelligence to capture the expertise of physicians like Caroline Collins MD through the Tacit Object Modeler, or TOM. By using TOM, Kuhnert and Collins can create her “decision-making digital twin.” Though there are a number of ways TOM could be useful to the healthcare industry when prescribing medications, not least among them is the potential to expand access to the expert opinions of medical specialists to rural areas experiencing significant health disparities.

Help keep the great Goizueta stories coming with a gift of support to Emory’s 2O36 campaign.

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As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly reshapes the business world, we at Goizueta Business School are intently studying its implications for our many stakeholders. Given the equally rapid pace of change in the AI field, this will be an ongoing and urgent investigation for many years. However, some lessons have already become clear during the early years of this new revolution in technology. We will describe a few of these lessons, and how they are already impacting our strategic initiatives at the school.

A Powerful Tool in the Right Hands

A first lesson is that, despite widespread fears, AI does not have to be a job killer but can instead be a productivity enhancer. When entrepreneurs can rapidly draft contracts and write code, many business opportunities will be created. When researchers can quickly gain insights into consumer behavior, new market segments will be created. In general, when employees need less time for rote tasks and can spend more time on higher-level thinking, that only makes them more valuable, and also makes their time at work more fulfilling. From this perspective, AI could be yet another form of technological progress that ultimately unlocks greater economic growth and a more satisfying career experience.

However, this perspective assumes that workers and managers will know how and when to use AI technology. For them to be in that position, there will be tremendous value in obtaining early career exposure to cutting-edge applications of AI across all domains. Indeed, it seems safe to say that future careers will revolve around recognizing and pursuing opportunities to deploy existing AI technologies to achieve solutions in new settings. This requires creativity, critical thinking, and leadership, all fundamentally human traits that cannot themselves be automated. Higher education is devoted to cultivating all these traits in our students, and our role will be more important than ever as AI literacy becomes a critical skill to future careers throughout the economy.

The Importance of Human Oversight

A second lesson is that, while generative AI is astonishingly fast at producing a solid first draft of any task, it cannot be trusted on its own to achieve production-quality output, cite sources, or explain its reasoning. Organizations that blindly deploy AI-generated content will be quickly noticed by their customers, employees, and other stakeholders, to the detriment of their brands. This means that, while the future of work will include heavy uses of generative AI to get started on difficult tasks, it will also involve extensive checking on the quality of their output, coaching and improving them to perform better, and anticipating the situations in which they can be deployed safely. Professionals will need deep awareness of how these models learn, the mistakes and biases they exhibit, and what nudges might improve their performance.

With these insights in mind, Goizueta Business School is rapidly rolling out a broad array of teaching, research, and administration initiatives that will strategically integrate AI technology into our curriculum and operations.

Building AI Fluency through Experiential Learning

At Goizueta, we have created four dimensions to enhance AI fluency through our curriculum: Foundational knowledge of AI, business applications of AI, technical application development with AI, and societal and ethical implications of AI. We have been reimagining business education to provide fluency in these dimensions with courses across all academic areas. Beyond the classroom, we focus on giving our students hands-on opportunities to utilize AI tools for their daily tasks, recognizing that some skills are best learned through experience and interaction. Our philosophy is that AI must be ubiquitous during the student experience to prepare them for a career in which it will be commonplace. We have to prepare our graduates to be fluent in the use of AI tools for generation or automation, preparing them for their first jobs upon graduation and enabling them to adapt to inevitable future AI developments.

AI as a Teaching Assistant

As one prominent example of our efforts, we have developed a platform for deploying Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) based chatbots as virtual teaching assistants for any given course. The system is designed to be agnostic about the course in question: Faculty provide it with the materials that they are willing to share, and it quickly builds a knowledge base that it can use for discussions with students. This system is being rolled out across multiple courses in the fall, with plans for a broader rollout to all interested faculty by the spring semester. In our early testing, the system is remarkably adept at explaining complex concepts, walking through exercises and reviewing problems, and translating course material into foreign languages. Intended future developments include personalizing responses based on students’ level of understanding and using the virtual teaching assistant to follow up on classroom discussions.

With around-the-clock help from a virtual TA available at the push of a button, students will be able to progress more quickly through the foundational material of the course and arrive sooner at the frontier of knowledge where they must grapple with deeper and unsettled questions in their field. At this frontier, chatbots themselves struggle to provide correct answers, and start to exhibit characteristic overconfidence in unreliable answers. This too will be part of the learning experience for students, as we critically examine AI-generated output, and understand why it can exhibit shortcomings when the same tools excel at more basic tasks. In the end, the virtual TA is a way to help students with their knowledge of not only the course material itself, but also the promises and perils of applying AI to that same material.

AI in the Classroom: Grading, Coding and More

We are building AI into the classroom experience along other dimensions as well. A team of Goizueta faculty is piloting an AI grading system this fall. The goal is not for AI to generate the ultimate grades, but rather to give students immediate, preliminary feedback on their projects, highlighting any significant issues that they might want to revisit before submitting. This tool amplifies the student learning experience by allowing students to stretch the limits of their own knowledge and develop deeper insights that will be reliable and robust for decision-making. This is a natural use case for AI in the real world of business, and we feel that it should be embraced in the classroom as well.

Similarly, classes that feature heavy coding will also use AI in the classroom to rapidly prototype code and focus on the concepts being illustrated, rather than the details of syntax or function definitions. Variations on an initial idea can be spun up in moments and constraints on the process can easily be imposed. Students will still need to study and learn the exact syntax behind in-class examples, but this can be done outside of class, again with the help of an AI such as the chatbots described above. While AI-assisted coding cannot replace the programmer, it can serve as a layer of abstraction between the programmer and the hardware, much like a programming language itself. As with all new tools, the future will belong to developers who know when and how to use this new layer of abstraction to their benefit.

Innovators in Business Education

The common theme with these ideas is that AI can allow students and faculty to avoid frustration and pain points and refocus our attention on the engaging and fulfilling work that brought us together in the first place. An equally important theme is that one cannot simply accept AI-generated answers uncritically but must apply critical thinking about its suggestions in order to be effective. This calls for human operators who are more knowledgeable about their fields than ever, making AI a productivity enhancer rather than a job killer.

At Goizueta, we have created many more such initiatives to transform business education and prepare our future workforce for a world in which AI is commoditized. Under the leadership of Dean Gareth James, these opportunities are being explored by a diverse task force of researchers, teachers, and administrators, with members including Rajiv Garg (Information Systems and Operations Management), Wen Gu (Information Systems and Operations Management), Allison Kays (Accounting), William Mann (Finance), Abraham Oshotse (Organizations and Management), David Schweidel (Marketing), Stephanie Adams (Academic Affairs and Instructional Design), and Pam Tipton (Executive Education)

The growth of AI technology has only begun, and the most important applications are yet to be seen. One safe prediction is that our current state of knowledge will be less important in the long run than the ability to study and react to the new ideas arriving over the next few years. We at Goizueta are hungry to know what the future will bring and will continue to position ourselves at the forefront of these impactful emerging trends.

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is developing into an amazing tool to help humans across multiple fields, including medicine and research, and much of that work is happening at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Financial reporting and auditing are both areas where AI can have a significant impact as companies and audit firms are rapidly adopting the use of such technology. But are financial managers willing to rely on the results of AI-generated information? In the context of audit adjustments, it depends on whether their company uses AI as well.

Willing to Rely on AI?

Cassandra Estep, assistant professor of accounting at Goizueta Business School, and her co-authors have a forthcoming study looking at financial managers’ perceptions of the use of AI, both within their companies and by their auditors. Research had already been done on how financial auditors react to using AI for evaluating complex financial reporting. That got Estep and her co-authors thinking there’s more to the story.

“A big, important part of the financial reporting and auditing process is the managers within the companies being audited. We were interested in thinking about how they react to the use of AI by their auditors,” Estep says. “But then we also started thinking about what companies are investing in AI as well. That joint influence of the use of AI, both within the companies and by the auditors that are auditing the financials of those companies, is where it all started.”  

The Methodology

Estep and her co-authors conducted a survey and experiment with senior-level financial managers with titles like CEO, CFO, or Controller – the people responsible for making financial reporting decisions within companies. The survey included questions to understand how companies are using AI. It also included open-ended questions designed to identify key themes about financial managers’ perceptions of AI use by their companies and their auditors.

In the experiment, participants completed a hypothetical case in which they were asked about their willingness to record a downward adjustment to the fair value of a patent proposed by their auditors. The scenarios varied across randomly assigned conditions as to whether the auditor did or not did not use AI in coming up with the proposed valuation and adjustment, and whether their company did or did not use AI in generating their estimated value of the patent. When both the auditor and the company used AI, participants were willing to record a larger adjustment amount, i.e., decrease the value of the patent more. The authors find that these results are driven by increased perceptions of accuracy.

It’s not necessarily a comfort thing, but a signal from the company that this is an acceptable way to do things, and it actually caused them to perceive the auditors’ information as more accurate and of higher quality.

Cassandra Estep, assistant professor of accounting

“Essentially, they viewed the auditors’ recommendation for adjusting the numbers to be more accurate and of higher quality, and so they were more willing to accept the audit adjustment,” Estep says.

Making Financial Reporting More Efficient

Financial reporting is a critical process in any business. Companies and investors need timely and accurate information to make important decisions. With the added element of AI, financial reporting processes can include more external data.

We touched on the idea that these tools can hopefully process a lot more information and data. For example, we’ve seen auditors and managers talk about using outside information.

Cassandra Estep

“Auditors might be able to use customer reviews and feedback as one of the inputs to deciding how much warranty expense the company should be estimating. And is that amount reasonable? The idea is that if customers are complaining, there could be some problem with the products.”

Adding data to analytical processes, when done by humans alone, adds a significant amount of time to the calculations. Research from the European Spreadsheets Risks Interest Group says that more than 90% of all financial spreadsheets contain at least one error. Some forms of AI can process hundreds of thousands of calculations overnight, typically with fewer errors. In short, it can be more efficient.

Efficiency was brought up a lot in our survey, the idea that things could be done faster with AI.

Cassandra Estep

“We also asked the managers about their perspective on the audit side, and they did hope that audit fees would go down, because auditors would be able to do things more quickly and efficiently as well,” Estep says. “But the flip side of that is that using AI could also raise more questions and more issues that have to be investigated. There’s also the potential for more work.”

The Fear of Being Replaced

The fear of being replaced is a more or less universal worry for anyone whose industry is beginning to adopt the use of AI in some form. While the respondents in Estep’s survey looked forward to more efficient and effective handling of complex financial reporting by AI, they also emphasized the need to keep the human element involved in any decisions made using AI.

What we were slightly surprised about was the positive reactions that the managers had in our survey. While some thought the use of AI was inevitable, there’s this idea that it can make things better.

Cassandra Estep

“But there’s still a little bit of trepidation,” Estep says. “One of the key themes that came up was yes, we need to use these tools. We should take advantage of them to improve the quality and the efficiency with which we do things. But we also need to keep that human element. At the end of the day, humans need to be responsible. Humans need to be making the decisions.”

A Positive Outlook

The benefits of AI were clear to the survey participants. They recognized it as a positive trend, whether or not it was currently used in their financial reporting. If they weren’t regularly using AI, they expected to be using it soon.

I think one of the most interesting things to us about this paper is this idea that AI can be embraced. Companies and auditors are still somewhat in their infancy of figuring out how to use it, but big investments are being made.

Cassandra Estep

“And then, again, there’s the fact that our experiment also shows a situation where managers were willing to accept the auditors’ proposed adjustments. This arguably goes against their incentives as management to keep the numbers more positive or optimistic,” Estep continues. “The auditors are serving that role of helping managers provide more reliable financial information, and that can be viewed as a positive outcome.”

“There’s still some hesitation. We’re still figuring out these tools. We see examples all the time of where AI has messed up, or put together false information. But I think the positive sentiment across our survey participants, and then also the results of our experiment, reinforce the idea that AI can be a good thing and that it can be embraced. Even in a setting like financial reporting and auditing, where there can be fear of job replacement, the focus on the human-technology interaction can hopefully lead to improved situations.”

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta. 

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YALI aims to empower young African leaders through academic coursework, leadership training, mentorship, networking, and follow-up support. The initiative was created through a partnership between Nelson Mandela and President Barack Obama in 2010. Currently, approximately 700 YALI fellows selected from more than 50,000 applicants spend six weeks in the U.S. each year. During the visit, the fellows study one of three academic tracks: business and entrepreneurship, civic leadership, or public management. The 25 YALI fellows who visited Goizueta operate in a number of industries, including sustainability, media, technology, agriculture, and cosmetics.

During their time in Atlanta, the fellows are hosted by Clark Atlanta University, and as part of their time in the city spend a day at Goizueta. Benn Konsynski, George S. Craft Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management, coordinates the fellows’ time at Goizueta. Their visit included a full slate of academic sessions with a combination of Goizueta faculty, alumni, and industry experts. After comments from Kristy Towry, John M. & Lucy Cook Chaired Professor of Accounting and Vice Dean of Faculty and Research, and Alicia Sierra, director, Human Resources and Diversity, the sessions began.

Engaging with Experts: Exploring AI, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation

First up was a discussion about artificial intelligence (AI) and the future of work, featuring a team from Microsoft. Bo Beaudion, director, transformation strategy, Microsoft, and Azim Manjee, senior account technology strategist, Microsoft, discussed the fundamental priorities shaping the AI transformation and introduced the fellows to Copilot, Microsoft’s workplace AI tool.

After the fellows spent lunch connecting with Towry, the guest speakers, and Konsynski, the fellows participated in multiple afternoon sessions. The first was “Revving Up Success: Entrepreneurship in the African Automotive Industry.” It featured Vinod Kadadi 12MBA, consulting partner, Automotive, Wipro Limited. Kadadi examined the role Africa plays in the automotive industry—as a consumer, supplier, and innovator. The session also touched on the evolution of propulsion systems and the opportunities such advances present to entrepreneurs in Africa.

Vinod Kadadi’s son,Tejas Kadadi, presented the following session on plastics and the environment. A high school senior at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Kadadi is also an entrepreneur. He is the founder of ReycloTech, an app that uses interactive AI to inform the public on how best to recycle and repurpose plastics. He also serves as the lead developer at Fund-A-Box, a company that aspires to connect farmers and plant-growers with donors. Kadadi focused on the transformative potential of generative AI in marketing, product innovation, technology strategy, and the labor market. “The YALI fellows engaged with and offered suggestions on Kadadi’s initiatives,” notes Konsynski.

The session that rounded out the day featured Rajiv Garg, associate professor of information systems and operations management. Garg shared insights on how generative AI is transforming industries. “The YALI fellows were engaged from the beginning and eager to expand the boundaries of learning by discussing the social and policy implications of AI innovation,” Garg says.

Learning from Industry Leaders Across Atlanta

The following week, Konsynski joined the fellows at Clark Atlanta University to discuss disruptive technologies. The fellows also spent time at Microsoft’s and IBM’s Atlanta headquarters during their time in Atlanta. While at IBM, Goizueta alum, Deepa Krishnan 06MBA, vice president of Worldwide Delivery Services, IBM Software, led a discussion on IBM’s cloud and AI initiatives.

Konsynski spent several days with the YALI fellows during their time in Atlanta. He describes them as “a bright, creative, energetic and fun group,” adding, “they return home with a great impression of Goizueta.”

To learn more about YALI, visit https://yali.state.gov/

Goizueta Business School is proud to be an active participant in a variety of organizations and initiatives that support and promote diversity in business and higher education. Learn more about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives at Goizueta.

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But are AI systems fair? The answer to this question, in short—not completely. Further complicating the matter is the fact that today’s AI systems are far from transparent.  

Think about it: The uncomfortable truth is that generative AI tools like ChatGPT—based on sophisticated architectures such as deep learning or large language models—are fed vast amounts of training data which then interact in unpredictable ways. And while the principles of how these methods operate are well-understood (at least by those who created them), ChatGPT’s decisions are likened to an airplane’s black box: They are not easy to penetrate.

So, how can we determine if “black box AI” is fair? Some dedicated data scientists are working around the clock to tackle this big issue.

One of those data scientists is Gareth James, who also serves as the Dean of Goizueta Business School as his day job. In a recent paper titled “A Burden Shared is a Burden Halved: A Fairness-Adjusted Approach to Classification” Dean James—along with coauthors Bradley Rava, Wenguang Sun, and Xin Tong—have proposed a new framework to help ensure AI decision-making is as fair as possible in high-stakes decisions where certain individuals—for example, racial minority groups and other protected groups—may be more prone to AI bias, even without our realizing it. 

In other words, their new approach to fairness makes adjustments that work out better when some are getting the short shrift of AI. 

Unpacking Bias in High-Stakes Scenarios

Dean James and his coauthors set their sights on high-stakes decisions in their work. What counts as high stakes? Examples include hospitals’ medical diagnoses, banks’ credit-worthiness assessments, and state justice systems’ bail and sentencing decisions. On the one hand, these areas are ripe for AI-interventions, with ample data available. On the other hand, biased decision-making here has the potential to negatively impact a person’s life in a significant way. 

In the case of justice systems, in the United States, there’s a data-driven, decision-support tool known as COMPAS (which stands for Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions) in active use. The idea behind COMPAS is to crunch available data (including age, sex, and criminal history) to help determine a criminal-court defendant’s likelihood of committing a crime as they await trial. Supporters of COMPAS note that statistical predictions are helping courts make better decisions about bail than humans did on their own. At the same time, detractors have argued that COMPAS is better at predicting recidivism for some racial groups than for others. And since we can’t control which group we belong to, that bias needs to be corrected. It’s high time for guardrails.

A Step Toward Fairer AI Decisions

Enter Dean James and colleagues’ algorithm. Designed to make the outputs of AI decisions fairer, even without having to know the AI model’s inner workings, they call it “fairness-adjusted selective inference” (FASI). It works to flag specific decisions that would be better handled by a human being in order to avoid systemic bias. That is to say, if the AI cannot yield an acceptably clear (1/0 or binary) answer, a human review is recommended. 

To test the results for their “fairness-adjusted selective inference,” the researchers turn to both simulated and real data. For the real data, the COMPAS dataset enabled a look at predicted and actual recidivism rates for two minority groups, as seen in the chart below. 

In the figures above, the researchers set an “acceptable level of mistakes” – seen as the dotted line – at 0.25 (25%). They then compared “minority group 1” and “minority group 2” results before and after applying their FASI framework. Especially if you were born into “minority group 2,” which graph seems fairer to you?

Professional ethicists will note there is a slight dip to overall accuracy, as seen in the green “all groups” category. And yet the treatment between the two groups is fairer. That is why the researchers titled their paper “a burden shared is a burdened halved.” 

Practical Applications for the Greater Social Good

“To be honest, I was surprised by how well our framework worked without sacrificing much overall accuracy,” Dean James notes. By selecting cases where human beings should review a criminal history – or credit history or medical charts – AI discrimination that would have significant quality-of-life consequences can be reduced. 

Reducing protected groups’ burden of bias is also a matter of following the laws. For example, in the financial industry, the United States’ Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) makes it “illegal for a company to use a biased algorithm that results in credit discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or because a person receives public assistance,” as the Federal Trade Commission explains on its website. If AI-powered programs fail to correct for AI bias, the company utilizing it can run into trouble with the law. In these cases, human reviews are well worth the extra effort for all stakeholders.

The paper grew from Dean James’ ongoing work as a data scientist when time allows. “Many of us data scientists are worried about bias in AI and we’re trying to improve the output,” he notes. And as new versions of ChatGPT continue to roll out, “new guardrails are being added – some better than others.” 

“I’m optimistic about AI,” Dean James says. “And one thing that makes me optimistic is the fact that AI will learn and learn – there’s no going back. In education, we think a lot about formal training and lifelong learning. But then that learning journey has to end,” Dean James notes. “With AI, it never ends.”

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta. 

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This year’s theme was “Deploying Large Language Models (LLMs): Opportunities and Challenges for Business.” The conference explored innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). It also provided an opportunity to celebrate the students’ accomplishments throughout the program. In between practitioner-led discussions, several student teams showcased their practicum projects. During these semester-long endeavors, the students worked with client companies to provide solutions to specific challenges the companies face.

“This conference bridges the gap between industry and students,” explains Scott Radcliffe, managing director, MS in Business Analytics program.

Professionals share real-world applications of generative AI. This aligns with our practicum projects where students tackle similar challenges for sponsor firms. It fosters industry connections, equipping students with practical skills and exposure to cutting-edge AI trends. This benefits both students and businesses.

Scott Radcliffe

Experts Explore Emerging AI Technologies

During this year’s conference, various discussions provided insight on emerging technical tools. Experts explored how industry is using these technologies and how businesses can best prepare to incorporate them. The discussions also covered what these emerging trends—and integrating them into one’s enterprise—”means for hiring students like ours,” says Ramnath Chellappa, associate dean and academic director of the MS in Business Analytics program.

Three industry-expert-led discussions focused on current issues regarding large language models:

• + “Unlocking Global Opportunities: Leveraging a Large Language Model for Business Success,” led by Wael Kdouh, principal cloud solution architect, Microsoft.

• + “How to Bring Models to Life—Understanding the product ionization, security, robustness, and transparency of AI and ML models,” led by Ashrith Barthur, principal security data scientist, H20.ai.

• + “Large Language Models’ potential use cases and challenges in healthcare,” led by Yubin Park, chief builder, mimilabs.ai; adviser, Astrana Health; and adjunct professor, Emory University.

The Power of Personal Connections

The day also included panel discussions on the topics of “Empowering Adoption: Preparing your Organization for LLMs,” “LLM Risks and the Law: Navigating Risk, Ethics & Compliance,” and “Taming the Tech: Vendor Selection for LLMs.”

Moumi Panja, senior AI consultant, Google, participated in the “Empowering Adoption” panel discussion. “The conference was an unmatched platform for students and professionals to gain cutting-edge insights from industry leaders,” says Panja.

I was privileged to share my expertise in large language models and engage with the next generation of AI-driven innovators. I also had the opportunity to learn and be inspired by the wealth of knowledge and experience shared by my fellow speakers.

Moumi Panja, senior AI consultant, Google

“It’s one thing seeing people on a webcast. It is a completely different ballgame when you meet them in person,” says Owden “O.G.” Mwangama 24MSBA.

In his native Tanzania, Mwangama founded EMET Healthcare. The company uses data analytics and smart technologies to highlight key issues around products such as medical oxygen, IV liquids, and distilled water across Africa. Mwangama spoke with Google’s Panja and several other practitioners regarding cybersecurity in healthcare. “It was a very good opportunity for me,” he says.

Mwangama’s team was unable to showcase the practicum project it completed in partnership with Equifax. This was due to the proprietary nature of the company’s data (everyone who worked on the project went through a background check and signed an NDA). Mwangama describes the project, however, as “the best part of my time at Goizueta. It was a real-life interaction in a business setting,” he says.

Students Showcase Practicum Projects for Industry Leaders

Over the course of the spring semester, students apply what they’ve learned throughout the 10-month program to provide solutions to a problem that is relevant to clients such as The Home Depot, Bank of America, Paramount+, Best Buy, and Focus Brands.

Students convert the business problem to a data problem, apply the latest data techniques to gather information, and then translate their discoveries into actionable business solutions. “We are business school students, and we solve business problems,” explained Chellappa. Three student teams, chosen by Radcliffe and Chellappa, presented overviews of their practicum projects to the audience.

The practicum projects showcased during the conference were:

               + Delta Airlines, Enhancing Airline Catering Efficiency: A Predictive Model for Special Meal Planning on Flights

               + NCR Voyix, LLM Knowledge Base Enhancement

               + GoTo Foods, Store Net Unit Growth and Closure Early Intervention Indicator Model

Several other student teams stood at dedicated tables where attendees could learn about their practicum projects.

Career Insights and Industry Networking

A career and alumni panel followed. This included Pratishtha Shukla, manager, marketing data science, The Home Depot, as well as alumni Janvier Nshimyumukiza 23MSBA, senior data scientist, CONA Services, and Jent LaPalm 22MSBA, data scientist, The Home Depot. The three shared their experience and wisdom with current students.

“Our students made great connections at the conference this year,” notes Christina Wan, senior associate director of student affairs, MS in Business Analytics program. “We appreciate our corporate partners and sponsors for their time spent with us.”

Maliki Uwase 24MSBA, calls the conference “an enriching experience.”

Engaging in discussions on data bias, integration, and responsible AI development broadened my perspective. Networking with industry leaders, professionals, and fellow students inspired new ideas for my career. It was a valuable opportunity for growth and learning.

Maliki Uwase 24MSBA

In addition to the client companies for the practicum projects, attendees included C-level executives, data scientists, and consultants from a variety of other firms. These included Mercedes-Benz USA, Sogeti, NVIDIA, Travelers, PwC, Amazon, and McKinsey & Company. Gareth James, John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School, also stopped by to address the audience and speak with participants and students.

On to the Next Problem

Radcliffe and Chellappa are currently working to identify sponsors for the class of 2025’s practicum projects. The pair is looking for companies, explains Radcliffe, with “doable yet complex” problems that the students can tackle with the skills they have learned in the program. Radcliffe and Chellappa hope to have the next slate of sponsors signed by the end of October 2024. In addition to the practicum projects, companies can sponsor various aspects of the Business Analytics Conference.

To learn more about sponsoring a practicum project, contact Nicole Saltau at nicole.soltau@emory.edu.

Goizueta’s STEM-designated Master’s in Business Analytics combines business, data, and technology to make you an effective business data scientist for a data-driven world. Learn more.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a new frontier, or as some say, the “Wild West” of tech. After performing a directed study on the subject, Jonathan Fineman 24BBA and Zaim Zibran 24BBA note that experts liken the arrival of AI to the Industrial Revolution.

If that sentiment puts you on edge, it’s ok: Fineman and Zibran haven’t forgotten to factor the complex human emotions surrounding major technological shifts into their calculations.

What brims with infinite possibility to some breathes an existential threat to others. As with any major technological development in human history, the cards will be reshuffled and money and power will flow in new directions. There are lingering questions about what will be lost, what will be gained, and the “law of unintended consequences.”

When it comes to the consulting industry, how will the chips land? Rather than wait and see, Fineman and Zibran decided to seek answers themselves.

“We’ve been witnessing the AI revolution transform every facet of modern life, from our work to even how we decide what gift to buy our best friends,” says Zibran. “So the question we asked ourselves is ‘How can we best prepare as not only consultants in the next few years but also business executives in the next few decades? How do we emerge as leaders who guide the business world and society through this massive transformation?’”

Conducting the Directed Study

A directed study is a semester-long project in which students receive a fair amount of independence to explore an area of academic interest. The study takes place under the mentorship of a professor, in this case, Richard Berlin, associate professor in the practice of organization and management. “That means we have to design the curriculum ground up. We take ownership, from front to end over executing it, and obviously, ensuring quality with Professor Berlin,” says Zibran.

[Professor Berlin] was guiding our takeoff, helping really steer us through the journey. We would course correct when we needed to, and then ensure that we were able to land with a high-quality deliverable.

Jonathan Fineman

Beyond mere curiosity, Fineman and Zibran were motivated by other factors. The first of these was to help themselves and others become proactive entities in the impending upheaval. An informed student base is better equipped to succeed when the tides shift. Plus, they wanted their research to have real use beyond the “ivory tower” of academia. “We viewed this as an opportunity to educate other students in Goizueta Business School,” Zibran says.

The two wanted to envision how consulting firms could change internally with roles and tasks as well as externally in the way they deliver value to the client.

So, Fineman and Zibran began their search online.“We looked at reputable sources, including consulting firms like Deloitte, McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Google Scholar… and more,” Fineman says. “But a key thing that we decided to do to distinguish our research is we also conducted interviews.” The pair interviewed twelve individuals. Some are Emory faculty while others are employees at consulting firms like McKinsey & Company, EY, and Deloitte. “And we used our interviews to supplement what we had already learned and really make that research original,” Fineman says.

The Impact on Consulting

In terms of findings, Fineman and Zibran say that while AI adoption is paramount, it seems to be lagging. “I think we found out that… adoption within organizations and society even is very slow because of inertia and organizational readiness. So, we don’t even have a lot of these data infrastructures ready,” Zibran says. “And people are very inherently afraid of losing agency to AI.”

Despite reluctance, the study doesn’t suggest that AI will make consultants obsolete, but rather augment their work. Consultants will be able to shift time and resources away from mundane tasks and towards higher-level strategic thinking with AI collaboration.

This is sort of the big picture answer from our study: AI cannot fully replace consultants, but more so can augment the existing workflows.

Zaim Zibran

While the finding that AI won’t replace consultants didn’t shock Fineman and Zibran, they did come across a few surprises. “We looked at a BCG and a Harvard study and found that while everybody benefits from AI, top staff benefit the least,” says Fineman. The hypothesis is that AI acts as an equalizer for under-average performers while top performers may not need it as a crutch so to speak. That said, Fineman points out that it’s an indicator that AI needs to grow a bit more.

Secondly, the two found that while generative AI can aid creativity and brainstorming, the same isn’t true of business applications. “There was another BCG Harvard study that showed that 90% of participants improved performance when using generative AI for creative ideation with a 40% improvement on average participants. However, participants using AI for business problem solving, they saw a 23% decline in performance,” Fineman says.

Lastly is the sheer scope of AI’s transformative power to revolutionize every industry. “It matters because consultants are working across different industries,” Fineman says. “That means consultants need to educate themselves on opportunities for how to guide clients through industry-specific AI challenges and opportunities.”

The Impact on Education

Fineman and Zibran insist that AI literacy is going to be critical, and the fundamentals need to start with education. “What is AI? How does it work? What are the different types of AI? And then how do we train AI models to generate output, “ Zibran asks rhetorically. “We don’t want people just using AI without understanding how it works and the logic behind it.”

Fineman and Zibran recommend AI as a larger focus at Goizueta. “We think that it’s important to integrate AI across all existing relevant classes,” Fineman says. The two think that Goizueta should lean headfirst into AI education and perhaps even create a new area of study. “And I think that’s how we leapfrog other universities who may be slow to react to this,” Zibran says.

The Biggest Change to the Future of Work Since the Industrial Revolution

As Fineman and Zibran espouse in their presentation, “Experts liken AI to the Industrial Revolution, with potential to reduce redundancy [and] inspire creativity.”

The Industrial Revolution improved the efficiency of factory production and generated wealth. However, a lot of that wealth ended up in the hands of a small group of people. Some workers enjoyed their crafts less once an assembly line automated the process. Will AI have the same effect?

Reassuringly, Fineman points out that the Industrial Revolution and the tech boom did not replace humans in the work force. “We’re pretty optimistic that with AI, it will be very similar. AI is not going to replace people, but will empower them…” Fineman says. AI will change the nature of jobs, and some jobs will become obsolete, but many new jobs will be created.

In the past, machines were only available to those with capital. Now, though, AI is accessible and can be a skill leveler. While one may have needed an innate gift in the past, AI can be an elevator to those with average abilities. Ensuring AI literacy is critical to leveling the playing field.

Interested in pursuing a business degree? Learn more about the unique programs Goizueta has to offer.

The future of business education is here, and it’s bold. Goizueta has transformed the traditional classroom into a dynamic digital ecosystem with virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), and holographic capabilities. Learn more about innovation at Goizueta here.

The post How Will AI Impact Consulting? appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

For someone who once thought college was out of reach, Jonathan Gomez Martinez 19C 24PhD knows how to take advantage of every opportunity that comes his way.  

Years ago, his older brother was accepted to college and then couldn’t go due to financial constraints. So, Gomez Martinez spent his high school years building on his computer skills and focused on job readiness.

But several events would change the trajectory of his career. He scored well on standardized tests, benefitted from a persistent high school career counselor, and received help from two nonprofits.

This month, Gomez Martinez receives his second degree from Emory University. He graduates from Goizueta Business School with a PhD in Information Systems and Operations Management. This fall, he moves to the West Coast to begin teaching as an assistant professor of data sciences and operations at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

The irony of his position is not lost on him.

“Despite the fact I thought I wouldn’t go to school, I ended up getting my choice of schools for undergraduate then decided to pursue a PhD. Now, I will be teaching at a school,” he muses.

Early Passion for Computers Sparks Academic Journey

The road to Emory, much less obtaining a doctorate degree, was far from a straight line Gomez Martinez. His interest in computers, however, began early.  

For his eighth birthday, he surprised his parents by asking for a computer. His fascination for making the computer “do stuff,” led him to dive into Excel. It resulted in a side hustle by the time he reached his late middle school and high school years. For a fee, he would perform statistical analysis for clients, selling his services on Craigslist.

“Customers didn’t know how old I was, and there was no Zoom,” he says.

His computer prowess grew in high school. There, he learned programming and SAS, statistical software, which combines programming with data. He and a classmate even presented a poster at the SAS Global Forum, a major conference in the industry.

“Most people were just interested in our age, not the project,” he says of the experience. “In hindsight, it makes sense. Nobody is going to believe our stats.”

Chasing a Dream

Even with his academic success, the goal remained to graduate and get a job. Born in Mexico, Gomez Martinez came to the United States with his mother and siblings in 2000, joining his father. Their move fulfilled one of his father’s dreams. He had become enamored with the American education system, and had been working in the United States already—saving to create a home for the family in North Carolina. While Gomez Martinez’s parents stressed the importance of education, financing college was out of reach.

His high school counselor would guide Gomez Martinez to resources that would open doors for him. These included Golden Door Scholars, which is an organization for undocumented students, and QuestBridge, a nonprofit that connects the nation’s most exceptional, low-income youth with leading colleges and opportunities.

“Between the two organizations, I could apply to schools for free,” he says. “So, I just applied to both programs, and to eight partner schools for each of them. If I got matched with either organization and a partner school, I would get a full ride. At the end of the day, I ended up with my choice of full rides.”

Ultimately, he chose Emory for its innovation and research. A visit to campus during Essence of Emory helped seal the deal. The invitation-only program is for admitted students from underrepresented backgrounds with high academic achievement, just like Gomez Martinez.

Finding His Own Path on the Academic Journey

The transition to college wasn’t easy, especially since his high school focused on work readiness, not college preparedness. But some soul-searching and extra-curricular events would help in his adjustment. Gomez Martinez began to make friends and took on leadership roles in Emory’s Jiu-Jitsu club. He also began dating a girlfriend who supported his study habits, and he immersed himself in a new quantitative theory program.

Originally, Gomez Martinez wanted to focus on computer science. However, the theoretical classes and math weren’t his favorite. Enter Cliff Carrubba, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor and department chair for Quantitative Theory and Methods—or QTM. Carrubba pitched there was going to be a big market for data scientists. He said the new QTM program would equip undergraduate students for jobs that used to require a higher degree.

“I was still thinking workforce preparedness. So, if I could get a master’s degree job after four years, that seemed like a good deal,” he adds.

The program offered Gomez Martinez the perfect balance. It involved a variety of coursework, including bioinformatics, calculus, regression analysis, data structure, and algorithms, along with artificial intelligence, with room to “churn through computer science courses.”  

A Mentor Lights the Way

The search for an internship would introduce him to Goizueta Business School.

My friends in consulting told me I needed to get an internship after my junior year because that opens up the door for full-time jobs.

Jonathan Gomez Martinez

The problem was he didn’t know how to approach the search. Specifically, his computer science colleagues all wanted to work for Google. However, Gomez Martinez had other plans in mind.

With nothing to lose, he turned to the business school and “threw a hail Mary.” He sent a cold email for help to Ramnath Chellappa, professor of information systems and operations management and associate dean and academic director, MS in Business Analytics.

The two would hit it off, and Gomez Martinez would become Chellappa’s teaching assistant for the business analytics program and, later, his research assistant.

At this point, [Professor Chellappa] was already talking to me about getting a PhD, but in my mind, the goal was to get a job.

Jonathan Gomez Martinez

Plus, Gomez Martinez had landed an internship with Equifax, the global data, analytics, and technology company, which had an interesting problem for him to solve. Still, Chellappa advised him to keep an open mind and to take the GRE.

Changing Course

The internship would provide another course correction. Gomez Martinez was tasked to help ensure the company didn’t suffer another security breach.  

“The Equifax internship was really cool for about a month,” Gomez Martinez says.

That’s when I finished the project, and they didn’t have another project. I think they expected it to take me a lot longer.

Jonathan Gomez Martinez

Indeed, a year before, a team of students had attempted to solve the problem but didn’t get far. With nothing more pressing to do than run reports, Gomez Martinez spent the down time studying for the GRE.

When he returned to campus from summer break, Gomez Martinez shared the experience with his mentor. “So, are we doing this?” Chellappa asked.

At that point, I said, ‘If y’all will pay me to stay at school for a while. Sure, why not?’

Jonathan Gomez Martinez

Decision made, he set off for the latest path in his journey.

Notes Gomez Martinez: “When I started the program, I took a research seminar where we would discuss papers with the dean of the program, which at that time was Kathryn Kadous, Schaefer Chaired Professor of Accounting. After submitting our first paper for the semester, her answer was something along the lines of ‘Jonathan, this is a lovely essay, but this is not what research is about.’ I always remember that. It was such a small thing, but she was there to redirect me at just the right time.”

Pursuing Impactful Work

Over the years, several faculty members at Goizuteta helped him refine his research and hone in on an area of focus. In addition to Chellappa, Gomez Martinez lists Anand Swaminathan, Roberto C. Goizueta Chair of Organization & Management as instrumental in this process. “I feel the two of them have co-parented me into learning what research is,” he adds.

Currently, he is working with Emma Zhang, associate professor of information systems and operations management, “who is helping me with statistical methods for modeling how users interact online across multiple social media platforms,” he says.

Gomez Martinez wants his work to have impact. His research examines the unintended consequences of digital platform strategy. In addition, he is exploring the social cost of AI-based automation, Microsoft’s release strategy, Apple’s privacy policy, and the efficacy of content moderation.

Examples of his work include a paper with Chellappa entitled “Content Moderation and AI: Impact on Minority Communities,” which explores the use of AI in social media. Specifically, the research examines how X (formerly Twitter), could disadvantage LGBTQ+ users, or other groups, by automatically censoring certain words or phrases that are deemed bias, but may, in fact, be ways in which a particular group interacts with each other. A possible result, Gomez Martinez shared in an Emory Business article, is that some voices might not be truly heard or “…You start reinforcing biases because you are using a time-saving technology that is not equipped yet to understand the complexity and nuance of human interaction.”

In addition, his research project with Chellappa entitled “Platform Policy Changes: Impact of Auto Moderation on Minority Community Rights,” has received two awards. The work received first place in the 2023 INFORMS DEI Best Student Paper Award competition and runner-up for the Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE) 2023 Best Student Paper Award.

Ultimately, Gomez Martinez notes, “I would like to either start working directly with platforms to see how their methods, in particular, can be readjusted or work with government entities in order to determine what a path forward should look like in determining legal liability and [other issues surrounding] platforms and AI.”

For now, he plans to spend the months between graduation and starting his new role at USC pursuing his research.

“I look forward to continuing to enjoy the remainder of my doctoral program and pushing out ongoing research in preparation for my new role in Los Angeles.”

The future of business education is here, and it’s bold. Goizueta has transformed the traditional classroom into a dynamic digital ecosystem with virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), and holographic capabilities. Learn more about innovation at Goizueta here.

Interested in pursuing a business degree? Learn more about the unique programs Goizueta has to offer.

The post Meet Goizueta: Jonathan Gomez Martinez appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Emory University’s Goizueta Business School offers insights into why and how we can use artificial intelligence to deliver educational content.

• + Early technological interventions can improve student outcomes, as long as human instructors are also involved.
• + Material that is delivered by AI tools can be quickly and easily updated. It also can be customized to provide more personalized learning experiences.
• + Many professors aren’t familiar with AI tools—and students are. So, schools need to encourage collaboration and provide support to faculty who want to experiment with the technology.

How would business education change if all instructors were assisted by avatars—virtual doppelgängers that look and sound just like them? More broadly, how would it affect student learning if every classroom included an artificial intelligence (AI) component?

The possibilities seem endless. When AI instructors are part of the classroom experience, it opens doors to many possibilities. Schools can deliver content in multiple languages, create hyper-personalized learning experiences, and easily update program materials. But how does an avatar’s communication of material compare to that of a human instructor?

To answer that question, Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta is exploring the best ways to deliver education through avatars, AI, and other developing technologies. Driven by curiosity, faculty and staff members are building on lessons learned during COVID-19, when curricula had to be adapted for online learning.

“In four or five years, AI technology will exponentially change. So, it’s up to us to embrace a more collaborative, technology-enabled education model,” says Gareth James, the John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School and an expert on statistical and machine learning methodologies. He notes that faculty who use AI are not merely standing at the front of the classroom, presenting knowledge. They’re also learning from students, “because many students are independently learning about this technology.”

Through these collaborative efforts, Goizueta’s faculty and staff have developed five key insights about why and how to use AI in the classroom.

1. AI Can Improve Student Outcomes

Rajiv Garg wondered how the presence of human and AI instructors might affect student performance—whether separate or in some combination. An associate professor of information systems and operations management, Garg worked with student researchers to set up a small study. He and his team assigned 40 students to classes taught by a human, an AI system, or both.

The students who performed best on the final exam had learned with human-generated course content guided by an AI voice/avatar. The second-best performers learned from the completely human-generated course. Those in the completely AI-generated course did less well. The poorest-performing students were those in the AI-generated course led by a human voice/avatar.

Garg and his students are expanding this small-scale experiment this semester. So far, it suggests that a faculty expert still does a better job of generating a course than an AI system does. But an AI assistant or avatar can deliver content successfully. This means schools can save both time and money by having human experts generate new content and avatars deliver it. James says, “You could certainly imagine getting the best of both worlds: great research and great presentation skills.”

To create AI assistants, professors first design avatars that are similar to themselves in appearances, voices, accents, and mannerisms. After professors feed scripts to the AI system, their avatars deliver the content in the form of videos. They can then use this content to supplement classroom teaching.

A faculty expert still does a better job of generating a course than an AI system does. But an AI assistant or avatar can deliver content successfully.

Garg encourages academics to be thoughtful in the material they provide to their virtual assistants. That’s because the AI is learning from all the content it consumes, and better inputs lead to more useful outputs. He also suggests that professors continually tweak the material the AI is using. Otherwise, both the avatar and the content could become stale and ineffective.

Creating an AI assistant is “not just a switch that you flip,” he warns. “You may be innovating content a dozen times in a semester to make sure the content is achieving the task of teaching students.”

2. AI Enables Quick Course Updates

AI is raising societal expectations that all deliverables—just like Amazon boxes—will arrive immediately. With the help of AI, faculty can swiftly create new material that reflects breaking changes across industries, explains Pam Tipton, Goizueta Business School’s senior director of custom executive education programs.

This flexibility is particularly useful for schools that offer customized education courses. Such programs often are delivered on demand to C-suite leaders in industries that are rapidly changing—sometimes because of AI itself. Many of Goizueta’s executive education participants come from Atlanta, a metro area of 5 million people that is home to 17 Fortune 500 company headquarters. AI allows professors to swiftly create and incorporate “new case studies, especially from within an executive’s own company,” Tipton says.

Her advice to professors who are unfamiliar with AI: Try a small experiment with free tools. “Set up free accounts and see what the output looks and feels like,” Tipton advises. “Play around in small ways to integrate AI into your classroom. When you experiment, you’ll find the AI tools that work for you and your clients.”

3. Faculty Need Support to Try AI

Stephanie Adams initially gulped at the disruption posed by AI. As the senior associate director of academic affairs and instructional design at Goizueta Business School, she supports faculty and students by helping them optimize their working relationships. While she knows AI presents growth opportunities in educational applications, she realizes that the learning curve can be steep for professors unfamiliar with the technology. She recommends that administrators provide accessible paths that encourage professors to try AI.

“We have folks who embrace innovation and technologies and folks who are more fearful, skeptical,” she says. “It’s important to build a space where they feel comfortable learning new things, comfortable exploring, and okay when something doesn’t work.”

Goizueta faculty have learned to use AI to develop slide decks, organize syllabi and course content, generate ideas, and comb through data. They also have discovered that some AI tools are better for text, while others are better for images or data. “When faculty feel empowered, it impacts learners in a positive way,” says Adams.

AI presents growth opportunities in educational applications, but the learning curve can be steep for professors unfamiliar with the technology.

The school held a gathering that allowed faculty and staff to share their AI experiences and teaching strategies. Adams particularly likes the scavenger hunt that a faculty member created using free AI tools. “There is an online link with a small prompt that helps professors learn to use the tool in a very basic way,” she says. “A scavenger hunt can be a brilliant, low-stakes way to learn and build confidence with AI.”

She adds, “Adapting to AI is a lot about teaching and learning with curiosity, because we’re never going to dip our toes in the water and learn something new if we let our fears hold us back.”

4. Students Must Learn the Ethics of AI

While faculty might find it difficult to master AI, many learners are already familiar with it. However, it’s often up to the school to ensure that students use the new technology in an ethical fashion.

“We don’t want students to violate the honor code. We want to uphold the integrity of our work,” says Adams. She believes it’s essential for the business school community to discuss its standards and agree upon best practices and guidelines for using AI.

“Rather than saying, ‘This AI tool is banned in my class,’ faculty could consider saying, ‘Let’s use this tool and really explore it,’” Adams suggests. Professors could have AI respond to a problem, then ask students to analyze its responses. What did it get right? Where did it go wrong? Students will learn not only how to use AI language models, Adams emphasizes, but also how to think critically.

Karl Kuhnert is one of the Goizueta professors who is exploring how AI can support ethical decision-making in the classroom and beyond. Using sophisticated AI software, he is “cloning” leading experts. To do this, he uses their judgment, intuition, and experience to create their digital twins. The resulting tools help individuals learn how to make subjective, time-critical, high-consequence decisions. It’s particularly useful in complex industries such as healthcare and insurance. For instance, doctors can use AI tools to determine whether or not to prescribe new weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic.

5. Be Strategic—But Have Fun.

Tinkering has its roots in play, and Goizueta Business School channeled some whimsy—and generated some buzz—by creating an avatar of its top leader. “Digi-Dean” stars in a brief social media video about how the school’s leadership is applying AI to business education.

“Emory may no longer need my services,” laments James, who is originally from New Zealand, in a post about his digital alter ego. “Anyone need a slightly used dean with an exotic accent?”

AI gives business schools another tool to expand their global reach, drive meaningful classroom exchanges with students, and respond to daily market changes.

More seriously, Goizueta faculty and administrators identify many benefits of using AI in the classroom:

• + Avatars allow schools to provide highly personalized education at a lower cost per student. For instance, faculty can use avatars to deliver content in any language to students from anywhere in the world.
• + Using AI, schools can customize core business courses for specific industries such as finance, real estate, healthcare, and technology.
• + If a professor leaves an institution, the school can use an avatar service to easily re-edit and rerecord supplemental materials.

Preparing for the Future

Today’s business schools are constantly seeking to expand their global reach, drive meaningful classroom exchanges with students, and respond to daily market changes. AI gives them another tool to achieve these goals.

In addition, when schools incorporate AI into the classroom, they are preparing students for the future. Goizueta’s namesake, former Coca-Cola CEO Robert C. Goizueta, put it this way: “Business schools today cannot just reflect business the way it is. They must teach business the way it will be.”

It’s clear that businesses will be relying heavily on new technology to support their future planning and growth. Business schools must adapt their educational approaches accordingly.

Goizueta’s teaching innovations have transformed the traditional classroom into a dynamic digital ecosystem with virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), and holographic capabilities. Learn more about our unparalleled educational experience with unparalleled results.

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Goon was a top performer during his time at Deloitte. He managed a team and helped companies successfully transition to cloud-based data storage.

He also began to see the full scale—and impact—of artificial intelligence, particularly given the rise of generative AI, like ChatGPT.

“I was always privy to the potential impact of AI, but never how much,” explains Goon.

I wanted to learn more about this intriguing technology and see how it could boost my career. At the same time, I wanted to pursue a degree that put this technology in a business context and used it to solve real-world business problems.

Dipanjan Goon 24 MSBA

So, he came to Goizueta.

Applying Data to Business

The Master of Science in Business Analytics program at Goizueta is fast-paced: Students complete the degree in 10 months. In what can seem like a whirlwind environment, the first course of the semester is over within six weeks.

As Goon approaches the end of his degree, he has started to experience “ah-ha” moments, where the content just “clicks.” The program’s structure uses content from one class as the foundation for lessons in the next, and so on. Students don’t have time to forget the material before the next building block begins.

“It’s such a fast-moving program, and we’re learning so much information. But this structure helped me retain the information,” says Goon.

Goon says this structure also allows students to begin job hunting, recruiting, and interviewing early in the program—and with confidence.

“After our first class, we were well-versed in how to speak about data science and machine learning,” he recalls.

One of the reasons that Goon chose Goizueta over other programs was because of the focus on business context. It’s one thing to understand how AI and machine learning operate, but it’s more important—for Goon’s career and trajectory—to be able to apply that information to help a client solve a business problem. This pivotal difference is the hallmark of the program.

Classes like Managing Big Data and AI and ML at Scale have been pivotal for Goon. They have shown him how to take the seemingly hypothetical concepts learned in earlier, exploratory courses and begin to apply them to business situations. That is something that’s been particularly helpful as the class works on their capstone project.

We can derive the most complex mathematical formula. But if it doesn’t help the business that we’re working with, then it’s not what we want.

Dipanjan Goon 24MSBA

Goon’s post-graduation plan builds on his experiences at Goizueta—working with businesses. He hopes to find a job that allows him to use his new artificial intelligence and data science skills to solve business challenges and help companies grow.

A Global Life Experience

Before moving to Atlanta, Goon was working for Deloitte in Chicago. But before that, he was born in India, grew up in Nigeria, and went to college in Michigan.

To say that Goon values and appreciates diversity is an understatement. Beyond the small class size and the business application of the academics, Goon says the other reason he chose Goizueta was because of the level of diversity among cohorts. He says he has found comfort at Goizueta because he’s not the only one from out of state or out of country. Goon joined a cohort that represented 13 countries.

“I’ve always come into a place feeling like a guest,” says Goon.

I’ve not been a local, but when I came to Goizueta, the diversity was more tangible. All of us were in the same boat. We were all kind of international in some way, even the non-internationals.

Dipanjan Goon 24MSBA

Even Goon’s faculty made an effort to help students feel at home in a foreign-to-them city. Rajiv Garg, associate professor of information systems and operations management, held gatherings at his home for major holidays, especially those that international students were unable to travel home for.

“He’s been super helpful with the way he teaches a very tough course and also makes a point to check in on all of us,” says Goon.

From group projects and working on homework together to hanging out at KEGs each week, Goon says all of his interactions with others have made him feel more comfortable. He hopes this will help him adjust quickly wherever he lands next, too.

“For the first time, I didn’t feel like I needed time to fit in,” says Goon of his cohort. “At Goizueta, I found an extremely tight-knit community where everyone looks after one another.”

Congratulations to our Goizueta graduates! Learn more about the celebration and register for Goizueta’s Commencement activities.

Interested in pursuing a business degree? Learn more about the unique programs Goizueta has to offer.

The post Meet Dipanjan Goon: MSBA Grad Looks to Unlock the Power of AI to Transform Business appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

The two big names in GLP-1 agonists are Ozempic and Wegovy, and both are a form of semaglutide. Another medication, tirzepatide, is sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound. It is also a glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) agonist as well as GLP-1.

Physicians have been prescribing semaglutide and tirzepatide with increasing frequency. However, both medications come with a host of side effects, including nausea and stomach pain, and are not suitable for every patient. Many clinics and physicians do not have immediate access to expert second opinions, as do the physicians at Emory Healthcare.

Creating a Digital Twin 

That lack of an expert is one of the reasons Karl Kuhnert, professor in the practice of organization and management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, is using artificial intelligence to capture the expertise of physicians like Caroline Collins MD through the Tacit Object Modeler, or TOM. By using TOM, developed by Merlynn Intelligence Technologies, Kuhnert and Collins can create her “decision-making digital twin.” This allows Collins to reveal her expertise as a primary care physician with Emory Healthcare and an Assistant Professor at Emory School of Medicine, where she has been leading the field in integrating lifestyle medicine into clinical practices and education.

Traditional AI, like ChatGPT, uses massive amount of data points to predict outcomes using what’s known as explicit knowledge. But it isn’t necessarily learning as it goes. According to Kuhnert, TOM has been designed to learn how an expert, like Collins, decides whether or not to prescribe a drug like semaglutide to a patient. Wisdom or tacit knowledge is intuitive and rooted in experience and context. It is hard to communicate, and usually resides only in the expert’s mind. TOM’s ability to “peek into the expert’s mind makes it a compelling technology for accessing wisdom.”

“Objective or explicit knowledge is known and can be shared with others,” says Kuhnert.

For example, ChatGPT uses explicit knowledge in its answers. It’s not creating something new. It may be new to you as you read it, but somebody, somewhere, before you, has created it. It’s understood as coming from some source.

Karl Kuhnert

“Tacit knowledge is subjective wisdom. Experts offer this, and we use their tacit know-how, their implicit knowledge, to make their decisions. If it were objective, everyone could do it. This is why we hire experts: They see things and know things others don’t; they see around corners.”

Mimicking the Mind of a Medical Expert

Teaching TOM to see around the corners requires Collins to work with the AI over the course of a few days. “Essentially what I do is I sit down with, in this case, a physician, and ask them, ‘What are thinking about when you make this decision?'” says Kuhnert. “The layperson might think that there are hundreds of variables in making a medical decision like this. With the expert’s tacit knowledge and experience, it is usually between seven and twelve variables. They decide based on these critical variables,” he says.

These experts have so much experience, they can cut away a lot of the noise around a decision and get right to the point and ask, ‘What am I looking at?’

Karl Kuhnert

As TOM learns, it presents Collins with more and different scenarios for prescribing semaglutide. As she makes decisions, it remembers the variables present during her decision-making process. “Obviously, some variables are going to be more important than other variables. Certain combinations are going to be challenging,” says Collins. “Sometimes there are going to be some variables where I think, yes, this patient needs a GLP-1. Then there may be some variables where I think, no, this person really doesn’t need that. And which ones are going to win out? That’s really where TOM is valuable. It can say, okay, when in these difficult circumstances where there are conflicting variables, which one will ultimately be most important in making that decision?”

The Process: Trusting AI

After working with TOM for several hours, Collins will have reacted to enough scenarios for TOM to learn to make her decision. The Twin will need to demonstrate that it can replicate her decision-making with acceptable accuracy—high 90s to 100 percent. Once there, Collins’ Twin is ready to use.

“I think it’s important to have concordance between what I would say in a situation and then what my digital twin would say in a situation because that’s our ultimate goal is to have an AI algorithm that can duplicate what my recommendation would be given these circumstances for a patient,” Collins says. “So, someone, whether that be an insurance company, or a patient themselves or another provider, would be able to consult TOM, and in essence, me, and say, in this scenario, would you prescribe a GLP-1 or not given this specific patient’s situation?”

The patient’s current health and family history are critical when deciding whether or not to prescribe semaglutide. For example, according to Novo Nordisk, the makers of Ozempic, the drug should not be prescribed to patients with a history of problems with the pancreas or kidneys or with a family history of thyroid cancer. Those are just the start of a list of reasons why a patient may or may not be a good candidate for the medication.

Kuhnert says, “What we’re learning is that there are so many primary care physicians right now that if you come in with a BMI over 25 and are prediabetic, you’re going to get (a prescription). But there’s much more data around this to suggest that there are people who are health marginalized, and they can’t do this. They should not have this (medication). It’s got to be distributed to people who can tolerate it and are safe.”

Accessing the Digital Twin on TOM   

Collins’s digital twin could be available via something as easy to access as an iPhone app. “Part of my job is to provide the latest information to primary care physicians. Now, I can do this in a way that is very powerful for primary care physicians to go on their phones and put it in. It’s pretty remarkable, according to Colllins.”

It is also transparent and importantly sourced information.  

Any physician using a digital twin created with TOM will know exactly whose expertise they are accessing, so anyone asking for a second opinion from Colllins will know they are using an expert physician from Emory University.

In addition to patient safety, there are a number of ways TOM can be useful to the healthcare industry when prescribing medications like semaglutide. This includes interfacing with insurance companies and the prior approval process, often lengthy and handled by non-physician staff. “Why is a non-expert at an insurance company determining whether a patient needs a medication or not? Would it be better to have an expert?” says Collins. “I’m an expert in internal medicine and lifestyle medicine. So, I help people not only lose weight, but also help people change their behaviors to optimize their health. My take on GLP-1 medications is not that everyone needs them, it’s that they need to be utilized in a meaningful way, so patients will get benefit, given risks and benefits for these medications.”

The Power of a Second Opinion

Getting second, and sometimes third, opinions is a common practice among physicians and patients both. When a patient presents symptoms to their primary care physician, that physician may have studied the possible disease in school but isn’t necessarily an expert. In a community like Emory Healthcare, the experts are readily available, like Collins. She often serves as a second opinion for her colleagues and others around the country.

“What we’re providing folks is more of a second opinion. Because we want this actually to work alongside someone, you can look at this opinion that this expert gave, and now, based on sourced information, you can choose. This person may be one of the best in the country, if not the world, in making this decision. But we’re not replacing people here. We’re not dislocating people with this technology. We need people. We need today’s and tomorrow’s experts as well,” according to Kuhnert.

But also, you now have the ability to take an Emory physician’s diagnosing capabilities to physicians in rural areas and make use of this information, this knowledge, this decision, and how they make this decision. We have people here that could really help these small hospitals across the country.

Caroline Collin MD

Rural Americans have significant health disparities when compared to those living in urban centers. They are more likely to die from heart disease, cancer, injury, chronic respiratory disease, and stroke. Rural areas are finding primary care physicians in short supply, and patients in rural areas are 64 percent less likely to have access to medical specialists for needed referrals.

Smaller communities might not have immediate access to experts like a rheumatologist, for example. In addition, patients in more rural areas might not have the means of transportation to get to a specialist, nor have the financial means to pay for specialized visits for a diagnosis. Collins posits that internal medicine generalists might suspect a diagnosis but want to confirm before prescribing a course of treatment.

“If I have a patient for whom I am trying to answer a specific question, ‘Does this patient have lupus?’, for instance. I’m not going to be able to diagnose this person with lupus. I can suspect it, but I’m going to ask a rheumatologist. Let’s say I’m in a community where unfortunately, we don’t have a rheumatologist. The patient can’t see a rheumatologist. That’s a real scenario that’s happening in the United States right now. But now I can ask the digital twin acting as a rheumatologist, given these variables, ‘Does this patient have lupus?’ And the digital twin could give me a second opinion.”

Sometimes, those experts are incredibly busy and might not have the physical availability for a full consult. In this case, someone could use TOM to create the digital twin of that expert. This allows them to give advice and second opinions to a wider range of fellow physicians.

As Kuhnert says, TOM is not designed or intended to be a substitute for a physician. It should only work alongside one. Collins agreed, saying, “This doesn’t take the place of a provider in actual clinical decision-making. That’s where I think someone could use it inappropriately and could get patients into trouble. You still have to have a person there with clinical decision-making capacity to take on additional variables that TOM can’t yet do. And so that’s why it’s a second opinion.”

“We’re not there yet in AI says Collins. We have to be really careful about having AI make actual medical decisions for people without someone there to say, ‘Wait a minute, does this make sense?’”

AI Implications in the Classroom and Beyond

Because organizations use TOM to create digital twins of their experts, the public cannot use the twins to shop for willing doctors. “We don’t want gaming the system,” says Collins. “We don’t want doctor shopping. What we want is a person there who can utilize AI in a meaningful way – not in a dangerous way. I think we’ll eventually get there where we can have AI making clinical decisions. But I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with that yet.”

The implications of using decision-making digital twins in healthcare reach far beyond a second opinion for prescription drugs. Kuhnert sees it as an integral part of the future of medical school classrooms at Emory. In the past, teaching case studies have come from books, journals, and papers. Now, they could come alive in the classroom with AI simulation programs like TOM.

I think this would be great for teaching residents. Imagine that we could create a simulation and put this in a classroom, have (the students) do the simulation, and then have the physician come in and talk about how she makes her decisions.

Karl Kuhnert

“And then these residents could take this decision, and now it’s theirs. They can keep it with them. It would be awesome to have a library of critical health decisions made in Emory hospitals,” Kuhnert says.

Collins agreed. “We do a lot of case teaching in the medical school. I teach both residents and medical students at Emory School of Medicine. This would be a really great tool to say, okay, given these set of circumstances, what decision would you make for this patient? Then, you could see what the expert’s decision would have been. That could be a great way to see if you are actually in lockstep with the decision-making process that you’re supposed to be learning.”

Kuhnert sees decision-making twins moving beyond the healthcare system and into other arenas like the courtroom, public safety, and financial industries and has been working with other experts to digitize their knowledge in those fields.

The way to think about this is: say there is a subjective decision that gets made that has significant ramifications for that company and maybe for the community. What would it mean if I could digitize experts and make it available to other people who need an expert or an expert’s decision-making?

Karl Kuhnert

“You think about how many people aren’t available. Maybe you have a physician who’s not available. You have executives who are not available. Often expertise resides in the minds of just a few people in an organization,” says Kuhnert.

“Pursuing the use of technologies like TOM takes the concept of the digital human expert from simple task automation to subjective human decision-making support and will expand the idea of a digital expert into something beyond our current capabilities,” Kuhnert says. “I wanted to show that we could digitize very subjective decisions in such areas as ethical and clinical decision-making. In the near future, we will all learn from the wisdom codified in decision-making digital twins. Why not learn from the best? There is a lot of good work to do.”

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta.

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