New research on how the competitive dynamics that created early tech giants may not repeat in the age of generative AI. For the last two decades, businesses have operated under the shadow of the Web 2.0 era, where a handful of giants like Google built unassailable tech fortresses. Now, as generative AI transforms every industry, […]
Workers have moved past the initial shock of Generative AI’s arrival. The tool is here, it’s accessible, and it might be open in one of your browser tabs right now. But a critical challenge remains: knowing that you should use AI is very different from knowing how to weave it into the complex, interconnected reality […]
Agentic AI has recently been moving through a period of heightened excitement and innovation, but empirical data on how these tools are actually being used has been scarce. The new study “The Adoption and Usage of AI Agents: Early Evidence from Perplexity,” by Jeremy Yang, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and […]
We live in an age where the call for transparent or “Explainable AI” (XAI) has never been louder. Businesses agree, with 85% believing transparency is critical to winning consumer trust. [1] Given this consensus, it seems reasonable to assume that when an explanation for a high-stakes AI decision is available, people will naturally seek it […]
What happens when the same technology powering a customer service chatbot becomes a daily companion for someone losing their memory? In the new Nature Mental Health Comment article, “AI Companions for Dementia,” Julian De Freitas, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Associate at the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard (D^3), […]
For decades, the business conversation around climate change has been focused on how to manage, mitigate, and withstand the risks and downsides. But what if there’s a more important story about opportunity that we’ve been missing? In the new article, “Tracking Business Opportunities for Climate Solutions Using AI in Regulated Accounting Reports,” published in Nature […]
What if we treated mental health the way we treated physical fitness—not waiting for a crisis, but building strength as a habit? The new working paper “AI for Proactive Mental Health: A Longitudinal, Multi-Institutional Trial,” by a team of authors including Julian De Freitas, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Associate […]
Executives rarely doubt AI’s potential anymore, but many are quietly unsure of their organization’s ability to make it pay off. If you’ve poured time and money into AI pilots and yet the bottom line barely moves, you’re not alone. In the new HBR article “Overcoming the Organizational Barriers to AI Adoption,” Jin Li, Feng Zhu—head […]
Imagine you’ve asked ChatGPT to analyze financial data for a critical business decision. Something about its calculations seems off, so you push back, but instead of acknowledging limitations, the AI doubles down by presenting elaborate justifications with data points and reassuring language. At this point, has the AI won you over? This isn’t a hypothetical […]
Picture this: you receive a well-crafted, deeply understanding message about a personal struggle you’ve shared. It acknowledges your emotions, offers thoughtful support, and demonstrates genuine care. Now imagine learning that response came from an AI chatbot, not another human. Would that change how you felt about the interaction? As AI technology grows more sophisticated, LLMs […]
