In coming months, Business Matters will explore the development of AI in business operations, research and education. Our first installment details the college’s leadership in navigating AI’s powerful impacts. The race for better artificial intelligence tools may come down to how well they address persistent needs in business. From marketing and customer analytics to human resources, companies are turning to AI to increase efficiency and improve day-to-day operations. The impact will be comparable, experts say, to the introduction of the PC, the internet and the cell phone. While the use of tools such as Microsoft’s CoPilot, Open AI’s ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini puts tech in the headlights, the focus for the college remains squarely on humans. “We center people in all of the work we do around artificial intelligence,” said Inara Scott, Gomo Family Professor and senior associate dean. “We ask questions like: How can technology help us build more human-centered and engaged workplaces? How can we use technology to further shared prosperity and strengthen communities? “We are teaching our students to employ technology ethically, using it alongside people to help them achieve their goals, not to replace but to empower them.” Researchers have used basic AI such as machine learning and neural networks for decades, but the rise of “large language models” and generative AI are making these tools as indispensable as the spreadsheet. “They are going to be part of students’ working environment going forward,” said Bret Carpenter, senior instructor who is coordinating AI strategies in the college. Take, for example, a common HR task: how to keep employees informed about company policies and resources. Businesses typically use a variety of tools to meet that need: booklets, training sessions, online FAQs and internal networks. Now, they may be turning to chatbots, software designed to mimic human conversation. But which ones are best? How well do they perform for each task? At what cost? And how should these tools and the data they require be managed? For Portland General Electric (PGE), a search for answers led last spring to Professor Bin Zhu’s analytics capstone class. Students broke into two The Human Side of Business AI Story by Nick Houtman 12 | College of Business
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