Year in Review
Dear AI at Wharton Supporters,
As we reflect upon the year of groundbreaking advancements and enthusiastic reception of artificial intelligence (AI), it is with immense pride and gratitude that we present this annual report on AI at Wharton. AI at Wharton is the result of the August 2023 merger of AI & Analytics for Business and the Wharton Impact of Technology Initiative. The rationale for the merger was the need to dually focus on AI business processes and human behavior that will transform and innovate business applications by understanding the technology and human impact of AI within those applications.
Over the past year, our community has witnessed remarkable achievements across AI research, teaching, and thought leadership. From experiential learning research projects to innovative teaching methodologies and courses that empower the next generation of AI leaders, our collective efforts are shaping the future of education and empowering individuals to become leaders in this rapidly evolving field.
We are driving progress and unlocking opportunities for growth and discovery, such as with the launch of the new Wharton Hack-AI-thon in April for Penn/Wharton students. We have awarded over $150,000 in research grants to Wharton/Penn faculty over the last two years, and over $50,000 in AI and analytics awards to students through the Venture Lab Startup Challenge. Our conferences and platforms, including our AI Horizons webinar series, not only showcase the innovative work being done at Wharton but also serve as catalysts for meaningful dialogue and collaboration within the broader AI community and on a global scale. Through interdisciplinary research partnerships with companies like Google and Microsoft, our faculty has addressed some of the most pressing challenges facing the field of AI and is regularly invited to speak at conferences around the world.
We express our deepest gratitude to our dedicated faculty, staff, students, and supporters whose passion and commitment have been instrumental to our success. We are most grateful for the support of all our donors, but in particular, Tao Zhang, WG’02, and Selina Chin, WG’02, whose initial gift enabled us to envision, launch, and create a research entity focused on AI in the business community.
Together, we all will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible and inspire future generations to dream big and aim high with AI.
Warm regards,
Executive Director, Mary Purk
Faculty Co-Directors, Kartik Hosanagar, Robert Meyer, Stefano Puntoni and Prasanna Tambe
Research
AI’s Effect on Innovation and Productivity
This research explores how AI facilitates innovation by documenting specific cases and mechanisms on when AI technologies should be used to innovate and when they should not, and their implications on demand for different types of labor and productivity.
Biased Technological Change: Implications for Productivity Measurement
This project seeks to develop methods for the measurement of productivity that account for these (and other) new technologies with the overarching goal of ensuring that their impact is fully reflected in the aggregate productivity statistics.
Reliability and Pricing in Cloud Computing
This project focuses on the prevailing “quality differentiation” strategy (in which spot VMs are sold at steep discounts) and its impact on market outcomes.
An Automated Solution to Causal Inference in Discrete Settings
The goal of this project is to create a tool to automate causal inference. This tool will reach a broad audience of applied researchers across the social and medical sciences by developing an easy-to-use front-end interface and implementing more efficient back-end optimizations. In addition, the project will create a series of data applications to illustrate its ease of use.
The Trouble with Bots
This project is an inductive two-part multi-sourced qualitative study that focuses on the practices and community around the developers that write bots, scripts and automated programs that are designed to override algorithmic controls and how workers use these technologies to resist and counter algorithmic control.
“I’m hoping that instead of human replacement, we’ll see human flourishing. Instead of feeling useless, you’ll feel empowered, you’ll feel inspired and you’ll feel able to actually do what you do best rather than feeling that you’re no longer needed.”
— Stefano Puntoni. Forbes. October 12, 2023.
Teaching
A large and growing number of for-credit courses in AI and emerging technology are offered to undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals via Executive Education, Wharton Interactive, and Wharton Online. Wharton’s online courses on AI have been taken by thousands of students on platforms like Coursera, ExecOnline, and more. Departmental faculty include Computer Science; Legal Studies; Marketing; Operations, Information and Decisions; and Statistics and Data Science. About 40 such courses are listed for undergraduates and about 25 for graduates and MBA students. A sampling of featured courses includes:
Talks and Presentations
Kartik Hosanagar
- Wharton Scale School, August 2023, 100 attendees
- Westbridge CEO Day, September 2023, 100 attendees
- INFORMS CIST conference panel discussion on AI, October 2023, 200 attendees
- Zell Lurie Real Estate Center keynote, October 2023, 200 attendees
- Wharton Undergraduate Executive Board, Presentation on AI to Wharton board members, November 2023
- TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Conference, December 2023, 200 attendees
- Multiple podcast appearances on AI-related topics in 2023
Robert Meyer
- How Will AI Transform Industries and Organizations?, November 9, 2023
- AI Horizons: AI and Machine Creativity, February 3, 2024
Stefano Puntoni
- “Deployment of Algorithms in Management Tasks Reduces Prosocial Motivation,” 12th Invitational Choice Symposium, Fontainebleau, France, 2023
- “Human Brain Capital in the Artificial Intelligence Era,” Wharton Neuroscience Summit, Philadelphia, USA, November 3 2023
- “Amplifying Leaders, Labor, and Consumers in the Age of AI,” Gartner Research Board for Global CIOs, Philadelphia, USA, September 28 & October 4 2023
- “How Behavioral Science Can Help Data Analytics,” MSI 2023 Analytics Conference: Technology, New Data Streams, & Marketing Strategy, Philadelphia, USA, May 5 2023
- Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA, December 2023
- University of Florida, Gainesville, USA, November 2023City University of New York, USA, September 2023
- University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, September 2023
- Harvard University (Marketing Camp), Cambridge, USA, June 2023
- Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, May 2023 (virtual)
- Stanford University (Marketing Camp), Palo Alto, USA, May 2023
- Temple University, Philadelphia, USA, February 2023
- Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA, February 2023
Prasanna Tambe
- HEC Paris Symposium on AI
- National Bureau of Economic Research Economics of AI and Digitization
- Strategic Management Society
- Georgetown/Brookings Panel on ChatGPT
- PA Chamber of Commerce Meeting, IT and Innovations
- Temple Conference on AI/ML
- National Academies of Engineering CS Workforce Committee
- AI Ethics & Governance Meeting with PA State Legislators
- NY Federal Reserve Board Meeting
- Jointly with the Mack Institute: “Driving Innovation with Generative AI: Strategies and Execution”
Government and Industry Engagement
Kartik Hosanagar
Professor Hosanagar serves as a member of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Responsible AI Council (advising Secretary Hicks on RAI); AI advisor to CTO of Eclerx; Founder of Jumpcut media, a startup applying AI to the media & entertainment sector.
Stefano Puntoni
Professor Puntoni presented “Amplifying Leaders, Labor, and Consumers in the Age of AI,” Gartner Research Board for Global CIOs, Philadelphia, USA, September 28 & October 4, 2023.
Prasanna Tambe
Professor Tambe and other members of the University of Pennsylvania met with Pennsylvania state legislators in May 2023 to discuss the rapid advancements in AI and help them ensure we strike a balance between innovation and ethics.
Events and Series
Wharton Business and Generative AI Workshop
The inaugural Wharton Business and Generative AI Workshop was hosted on the Wharton San Francisco campus on September 8, 2023. The event featured presentations by 26 academics, a poster slam, and an industry panel. More than 100 thought leaders in academia and industry from around the globe gathered to explore the transformative role of generative AI on business models, industries, and global economies and its future possibilities.
Driving Innovation with Generative AI: Strategies and Execution
A pivotal conference hosted by AI at Wharton and The Mack Institute for Innovation Management, gathered over 75 thought leaders from diverse sectors to unravel the complexities and transformative potential of Generative AI.
AI in Focus SiriusXM Series
The new AI in Focus podcast series launched in November 2023. Host Eric Bradlow, Vice Dean of Analytics at Wharton, met with Wharton faculty experts across a wide range of business domains — from healthcare and neuroscience to sports and the auto industry — to learn how AI will impact these fields moving forward, and what we can do to stay ahead of the curve.
Launch of the AI Horizons Webinar Series
Our AI Horizons webinar series hosts conversations with researchers who presented pathbreaking work at AI at Wharton’s Business & Generative AI Workshop in San Francisco. The free webinar series has four installments: AI and Wellbeing, moderated by Prof. Stefano Puntoni; AI and Machine Creativity moderated by Prof. Robert Meyer; AI and the Workforce, moderated by Mary Purk; and AI and Innovation, moderated by Prof. Kartik Hosanagar.
Publications and Podcasts
How AI Will Change the Workplace? Sonny Tambe of AI at Wharton chats with The Wall Street Journal about the ways AI will change the workplace. The Wall Street Journal.
How Do We Coexist with Algorithms? After decades of slow development, the growth of artificial intelligence is now in hyperdrive. Kartik Hosanagar explains how AI is changing human history, whether we’re ready or not. Knowledge at Wharton.
As AI Expands, Consumers Will Still Prefer Some Products Made with a Human Touch. Stefano Puntoni discusses the role of human labor in the face of advancing artificial intelligence and automation. The Wall Street Journal.
How AI Affects Our Sense of Self …And Why It Matters for Business. Gizem Yalcin and Stefano Puntoni emphasize the importance of understanding how interactions with AI impact people’s self-perception, as they can significantly influence various success factors. Harvard Business Review.
5 Ways Marketing and Sales Leaders Can Embrace GenAI. Stefano Puntoni discusses the transformative potential of generative AI in marketing, shedding light on findings from a recent survey of 600 business leaders in large U.S.-based companies. Harvard Business Review.
What to Expect in 2024
AI and the Future of Work
AI at Wharton is proud to host this two-day in-person academic conference on May 22-23, 2024 which will explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the workplace, covering themes on AI’s impact on employee experience, the necessity for reskilling and upskilling for an AI-driven future, and forms of collaboration between AI and humans in professional settings.
Inaugural Wharton Hack-AI-thon
AI at Wharton is excited to co-host the inaugural Wharton Hack-AI-thon on April 5-12. This co-curricular program provides Penn and Wharton students with an unparalleled opportunity to explore and innovate with artificial intelligence. Interested in supporting this event? Contact Tania Rorke.
Generative AI and Business Transformation
Taking place March 4-7, 2024 on Wharton’s San Francisco campus, this course dissects the technology, platforms, and large language models of generative AI and identifies opportunities for strategic and practical business applications. You will gain a deeper understanding of the transformational capability this technology has across a wide array of professional roles and industries. You’ll also explore the human impact — taking a closer look at the emotional and psychological reactions and biases that exist around this once-in-a-generation technology.
Faculty Co-Directors and Staff Leadership
Kartik Hosanagar
John C. Hower Professor; Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions
Robert Meyer
Frederick H. Ecker/MetLife Insurance Professor; Professor of Marketing
Stefano Puntoni
Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing; Professor of Marketing
Prasanna (Sonny) Tambe
Associate Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions
Mary Purk
Executive Director, AI at Wharton; Executive Director of Corporate & Donor Engagement, Analytics at Wharton
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