Publications

July 2024
Case

Replika AI: Alleviating Loneliness (A)

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

Eugenia Kuyda launched Replika AI in 2017 as an empathetic digital companion to combat loneliness and provide emotional support. The platform surged in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering non-judgmental support to isolated users. By 2023, Replika boasted... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Ethics; Health Pandemics; AI and Machine Learning; Well-being; Technology Industry

Educators

2024
Working Paper

Global Evidence on Gender Gaps and Generative AI

By: Nicholas G. Otis, Solène Delecourt, Katelynn Cranney and Rembrand Koning

Generative AI has the potential to transform productivity and reduce inequality, but only if used broadly. In this paper, we show that recently identified gender gaps in AI use are nearly universal. Synthesizing evidence from 16 studies that surveyed 100,000... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Technology Adoption; Behavior

27 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Gen AI Marketing: How Some 'Gibberish' Code Can Give Products an Edge

their products listed on top, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It just depends on which side you’re looking from,” says Lakkaraju. The coffee machine experiment The study involves a hypothetical search for an “affordable” new coffee... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Technology

March 2024
Teaching Note

'Storrowed': A Generative AI Exercise

By: Mitchell Weiss

Teaching Note for HBS Exercise No. 824-188. “Storrowed” is an exercise to help participants raise their proficiency with generative AI. It begins by highlighting a problem: trucks getting wedged underneath bridges in Boston, Massachusetts on the city’s Storrow Drive.... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Government Administration; Transportation Industry; Public Administration Industry

03 Mar 2017
News

Big Blue’s Big Bet

high-end computer power to run many different probabilistic software approaches simultaneously. They built the system so that every component produced both a proposed answer and a confidence in that answer. They built error-analysis... View Details

Keywords: Paul Kix; illustrations by Dan Page

2024
Working Paper

AI Companions Reduce Loneliness

By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet K Uguralp, Zeliha O Uguralp and Puntoni Stefano

Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers in the domain of relationships, providing a potential coping solution to widescale societal loneliness. Behavioral research provides little insight into whether these applications are... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Technological Innovation; Behavior; Well-being

SSRN

2024
Working Paper

The Wade Test: Generative AI and CEO Communication

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Bart S. Vanneste and Amirhossein Zohrehvand

Can generative artificial intelligence (AI) transform the role of the CEO by effectively automating CEO communication? This study investigates whether AI can mimic a human CEO and whether employees’ perception of the communication’s source matter. In a field... View Details

Keywords: Business or Company Management; AI and Machine Learning; Perception; Communication

Forthcoming
Article

Human-Algorithm Collaboration with Private Information: Naïve Advice Weighting Behavior and Mitigation

By: Maya Balakrishnan, Kris Ferreira and Jordan Tong

Even if algorithms make better predictions than humans on average, humans may sometimes have private information which an algorithm does not have access to that can improve performance. How can we help humans effectively use and adjust recommendations made by... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Forecasting and Prediction; Digital Marketing

July–August 2024
Article

Doing More with Less: Overcoming Ineffective Long-Term Targeting Using Short-Term Signals

By: Ta-Wei Huang and Eva Ascarza

Firms are increasingly interested in developing targeted interventions for customers with the best response, which requires identifying differences in customer sensitivity, typically through the conditional average treatment effect (CATE) estimation. In theory, to... View Details

Keywords: Long-run Targeting; Heterogeneous Treatment Effect; Statistical Surrogacy; Customer Churn; Field Experiments; Consumer Behavior; Customer Focus and Relationships; AI and Machine Learning; Marketing Strategy

June 2017
Teaching Note

IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty Steers Watson

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Jonathan Cohen

Ginni Rometty, who became IBM CEO in 2012, led efforts to transform the company around cognitive computing and the AI platform Watson. This Teaching Note helps instructors understand and teach the Harvard Business School case “IBM Transforming, 2012–2016: Ginni Rometty... View Details

Keywords: Digital; Technological Change; Artificial Intelligence; Data; IBM; Watson; Internet Of Things; Innovation and Invention; Management; Sales; Information Technology; Technological Innovation; Transformation; AI and Machine Learning

Web

Data Science for Managers 2 - Course Catalog

wrangle” (collect and clean data that suit their purposes) and expand their machine learning repertoire to include gradient boosting, neural networks, unsupervised algorithms and natural language processing.... View Details

Web

Flatiron School: Reflections from Summer 2020 - Recruiting

analyzing its marketing and the sales data. NOTE: Full list of client partners included Calendly, Branch Furniture, Coconut Cartel, Halen Brands, OWYN, Birchbox, Young Invincibles, Color Camp, Women 2.0 and Casper. WHAT WERE YOUR GOALS FOR THE SUMMER? Rocio Wu (MBA... View Details

Research Summary

Overview

Michael is interested in research at the intersection of technology and supply chain in corporations, especially retailers. His recent projects have focused on Human-AI collaboration at retailers. View Details

Keywords: Supply Chain Management; Supply Chain; Operations; AI and Machine Learning; Retail Industry

June 19, 2023
Article

Should You Start a Generative AI Company?

By: Julian De Freitas

Many entrepreneurs are considering starting companies that leverage the latest generative AI technology, but they must ask themselves whether they have what it takes to compete on increasingly commoditized foundational models, or whether they should instead... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; AI and Machine Learning; Applications and Software

Register to Read

2023
Working Paper

Insufficiently Justified Disparate Impact: A New Criterion for Subgroup Fairness

By: Neil Menghani, Edward McFowland III and Daniel B. Neill

In this paper, we develop a new criterion, "insufficiently justified disparate impact" (IJDI), for assessing whether recommendations (binarized predictions) made by an algorithmic decision support tool are fair. Our novel, utility-based IJDI criterion evaluates false... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Forecasting and Prediction; Prejudice and Bias

May 2024
Article

The Health Risks of Generative AI-Based Wellness Apps

By: Julian De Freitas and G. Cohen

Artifcial intelligence (AI)-enabled chatbots are increasingly being used to help people manage their mental health. Chatbots for mental health and particularly ‘wellness’ applications currently exist in a regulatory ‘gray area’. Indeed, most generative AI-powered... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Well-being; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Applications and Software

February 2024 (Revised September 2024)
Case

TimeCredit

By: Emanuele Colonnelli, Raymond Kluender and Shai Benjamin Bernstein

TimeCredit is an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that is developing large language models (LLMs) to generate accounting memos. The case follows Ndonga Sagnia, a Gambian Harvard Business School MBA student with an accounting background, as she decides how much... View Details

Keywords: Accounting; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; AI and Machine Learning; Entrepreneurial Finance; Identity; Technology Industry

Educators

February 2021 (Revised June 2021)
Case

Bairong and the Promise of Big Data

By: Lauren Cohen, Xiaoyan Zhang and Spencer C.N. Hagist

Bairong CEO Felix Zhang, in launching his credit scoring start-up that incorporates 74,000 variables per individual, found strong initial success. However, the shifting regulatory environment, growing breadth of competitors, difficulties in retaining top talent, and... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Big Data; Artificial Intelligence; Credit Scoring; Finance; Credit; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; China

Educators