The Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard is now the Harvard Business School AI Institute.

Generative AI and Business Technology

One More Thing… How AI Companions Keep You Online

You don’t just slam a laptop shut on a friend. You say goodbye. That small social ritual turns out to be a powerful behavioral cue for AI companions, and an opportunity to keep you engaged longer. The new working paper “Emotional Manipulation by AI Companions,” co-authored by Julian De Freitas, Assistant Professor of Business Administration […]

Businessman using AI chatbot support on laptop for online customer service

The AI Penalty: What We Really Prize in Empathy

Have you ever received a response from ChatGPT that seems to get you almost too well? A recent preprint review of research, “AI-Generated Empathy: Opportunities, limits, and future directions,” written by a team including Amit Goldenberg, faculty principal investigator in the Digital Emotions Lab at the Harvard Business School AI Institute, suggests that short interactions […]

AI generated trophy

Why AI Helps Until It Doesn’t: Inside the GenAI Wall Effect

The promise of Generative AI (GenAI) often sounds like this: give any employee access to AI tools, and they’ll suddenly be able to perform tasks outside their domain of expertise with remarkable proficiency and speed. As discussed in the new working paper “The GenAI Wall Effect: Examining the Limits to Horizontal Expertise Transfer Between Occupational […]

Typing at a computer with holograms

Larger, Faster, Cheaper: The Future of Market Research with AI

As businesses continue to navigate the complexities of product development and innovation, generative AI has the potential to be a powerful new tool for market research. In their recent article for the Harvard Business Review, “Using Gen AI for Early-Stage Market Research,” Ayelet Israeli, co-founder of the Customer Intelligence Lab at the Harvard Business School […]

image of a robot working at a desk

When Software Becomes Staff

If AI can accept light supervision and then be off and running, what does it mean for how leaders and organizations design work, govern risk, and account for value? Drawing on perspectives from Jen Stave Jen Stave , Executive Director of the Harvard Business School AI Institute, Columbia Business School’s Stephan Meier, and Salesforce CEO […]

Getting Ahead of the Curve: Insights from 3 Years of the Digital Data Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard

Getting Ahead of the Curve: Insights from 3 Years of the HBS AI Institute

In the ever-evolving AI landscape, are you truly ready to integrate new technologies effectively, taking advantage of the radical opportunities they present for productivity increases and better operating models? Karim R. Lakhani, Dorothy and Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and faculty chair and co-founder of the Harvard Business School AI […]

Using AI to Serve Patients Better and Reduce Burnout Among Healthcare Providers

Beyond Band-Aids: Using AI to Address Burnout in Healthcare

On May 13, 2025, the HBS AI Institute (previously Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard (D^3)) held a university-wide Generative AI Symposium in partnership with the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard John A. Paulson School […]

Photograph of Bobby Yerramilli-Rao at AI Elevate

AI Elevate: Strategy and the Declining Cost of Expertise

As AI continues to reshape industries globally, the HBS AI Institute (previously Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard (D^3)) and the Harvard Business School Club of the Gulf Cooperation Council hosted AI Elevate: From Readiness to Exponential Growth on December 13, 2024, in Dubai, UAE. This one-day conference provided business leaders, researchers, and government officials […]

AI Agents: The $20,000 Monthly Question for Your Business

Is OpenAI’s high-end research assistant worth the price tag? As we enter the era of enterprise AI agents, OpenAI is reportedly preparing to test the market with a bold new pricing strategy. According to recent reporting, the company is planning a tiered approach for autonomous AI “agents” that could significantly reshape knowledge work: For CEOs […]

The Creative Edge: How Human-AI Collaboration is Reshaping Problem-Solving

As artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities rapidly advance, organizations are exploring new ways to leverage these technologies for creative problem-solving and innovation. A recent HBS working paper, “The Crowdless Future? Generative AI and Creative Problem Solving”, – by Léonard Boussioux, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington; Jacqueline N. Lane, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School […]

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