Me, Myself, and AI

While Me, Myself, and AI is on winter break, we hope you enjoy this episode. Jennifer Strong, longtime journalist and creator of the SHIFT podcast, joins Sam and Shervin to talk about their favorite Me, Myself, and AI episodes. Read the episode transcript here.

Find the additional podcasts mentioned in the episode below:

SHIFT podcast

In Machines We Trust

WSJ’s The Future of Everything

 Guest Bio:

Jennifer Strong is an audio journalist covering the impact of AI on the way we live and work. She’s the creator of several tech podcasts for newsrooms, including ProPublica, The Wall Street Journal, and MIT Technology Review. Her podcast SHIFT, with the Public Radio Exchange, covers "the far-reaching impact of automation on our daily lives," according to Apple Podcasts.

Her reporting has been widely recognized, including six Webby and three Podcast Academy Award nominations. Her narrative podcasts were finalists at the New York Festivals for the last two years, and a finalist for Podcast of the Year by The Drum Awards in London for a taping she did inside an experimental fighter plane.

Strong has also produced a business show for NPR and reported on national security for PRI. She’s been a keynote stage host and moderator at the AI for Good Global Summit, The Future of Everything Festival, Web Summit, among others.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Alanna Hooper.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

 We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials. 

On this bonus episode, we head to the World Bank offices in Washington, D.C., where hosts Sam and Shervin joined organizers Jonathan Timmis and Timothy DeStefano from the World Bank and Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business for the day-long conference, “How is Artificial Intelligence Transforming Firms?” in December 2023.

In our second of three bonus episodes derived from this event, we explore how AI is used in manufacturing. Sam hosts this panel featuring Shervin alongside Ness Shroff, director of the AI Edge Institute at Ohio State University, and Matthew Wilding, colead of U.S. Steel’s Digital & Artificial Intelligence Program. This episode offers an abridged listen to the panel discussion; for the full session video, please visit the conference’s website.

Guest Bios

Ness Shroff is director of the AI Edge Institute at Ohio State University.

Matthew Wilding is colead of U.S. Steel’s Digital & Artificial Intelligence Program.

Shervin Khodabandeh is cohost of Me, Myself, and AI and a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group.

Sam Ransbotham is cohost of Me, Myself, and AI and a professor of analytics at Boston College.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

 We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials. 

While Me, Myself, and AI is on winter break, we hope you enjoy this episode. Tom Davenport, President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, joins Sam and Shervin to talk about their predictions for AI trends in 2024. Read the episode transcript here.

 Find the additional studies and resources mentioned in the episode below:

Tom Davenport’s articles with MIT SMR

2024 CDO Insights: Data & Generative AI(form required for download via AWS)

Why Companies That Wait to Adopt AI May Never Catch Up

What the data says about Americans’ Use of Artificial Intelligence (Pew Research)

What do AI chatbots really mean for students and cheating? (Stanford Graduate School of Education)

Randy Bean’s 2024 Executive Survey

 Guest Bio

Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, a visiting professor at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, and a fellow of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. He is coauthor of Working With AI: Real Stories of Human-Machine Collaboration (MIT Press, 2022).

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn. 

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials. 

*New! for a limited time, please take our short listener survey. We value your feedback!*

On this bonus episode, we head to the World Bank offices in Washington, D.C., where hosts Sam and Shervin joined organizers Jonathan Timmis and Timothy DeStefano from the World Bank and Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business for the day-long conference, “How is Artificial Intelligence Transforming Firms?” in December 2023.

In our first of three bonus episodes derived from this event, we explore how AI is used in retail in a discussion facilitated by Shervin featuring Walmart’s Prakhar Mehrotra (who you may remember from the very first episode of Me, Myself, and AI!) and Tapestry’s Fabio Luzzi.

This episode offers an abridged listen to the panel discussion; for the full session video, please visit the conference’s website.

 Guest Bios

Prakhar Mehrotra is corporate vice president, applied AI at Walmart.

Fabio Luzzi is head of data and analytics at Tapesty.

Shervin Khodabandeh is cohost of Me, Myself, and AI and a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials. 

*New! For a limited time, please take our short listener survey. We value your feedback!*

When Mark Surman produced a pro-peace public service announcement for his local TV station as a self-proclaimed “punk rock kid” in the 1980s, he wasn’t thinking about a future career evangelizing fair, equitable, and trustworthy technology access for everyone. But today, as president of the Mozilla Foundation, he is focused on exactly that.

 Mark went on to study filmmaking and has parlayed his communications expertise into technology leadership roles, where he has continued to work to “change hearts and minds by telling the truth.” On this episode, Mark shares his take on the roles of both big tech and startups in the responsible AI conversation and also describes a recent report on trustworthy AI from the Mozilla Foundation. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Mark Surman is president of the Mozilla Foundation, a global nonprofit that does everything from developing the Firefox web browser to advocating for a more open, equitable internet. His current focus is fueling Mozilla’s efforts to invest in responsible tech startups (via Mozilla Ventures) and to create foundational technology for more trustworthy AI (via Mozilla.ai). Before joining Mozilla, Surman spent 15 years leading organizations and projects that promoted the use of the internet and open-source technology for social empowerment.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Growing up in a multilingual community, Prem Natarajan became interested in language at a young age. Eventually that interest, aptitude, and curiosity translated into an interest in machine learning and technical development, and today Prem works as the chief scientist and head of enterprise AI at financial services company Capital One.

Prem joins this episode to share how Capital One’s technology teams are delivering value to customers by applying artificial intelligence in areas like fraud detection, how generative AI’s strengths stand to transform the developer experience, and why the right combination of product, science, and engineering expertise is key to successful AI and machine learning initiatives. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

As chief scientist and head of enterprise AI at Capital One, Prem Natarajan leads technology strategy, architecture, and development for the company’s enterprise data, analytics, and AI and machine learning initiatives, including advancing its AI capabilities, tools, and research efforts. Natarajan has more than two decades of experience leading science, technology, and commercialization efforts in natural language processing, speech recognition, computer vision, forecasting, and other applications of machine learning. 

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

When Vandi Verma saw the Spirit and Opportunity rovers land on Mars while she was working toward a Ph.D. in robotics, it set her on a path toward working at NASA in space exploration., Perhaps unsurprisingly, today, as chief engineer for robotic operations at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Vandi sees the biggest opportunities for artificial intelligence in robotics and automation.

She describes the ways in which the Mars rovers rely on AI, including the technology’s use in digital twin simulations that enable JPL scientists at to practice their driving skills before actually controlling the rovers on Mars. She also discusses how NASA’s use of AI — and its approach to risk — offer lessons for organizations that are looking to simulate real-world scenarios here on Earth. Read the episode transcript here.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

Guest bio:

Vandi Verma is a principal engineer and the deputy section manager for the Mobility & Robotics section at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She also serves as chief engineer of robotic operations for the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. She was previously the assistant section manager of the Mobility & Robotics section, the supervisor of the section staff group, and the supervisor of the Operable Robotics Group.

Verma works on new robotics capabilities, including R&D; mission design; prototyping; flight development, testing, and launch; and landing and surface operations. She has been engaged in robotic operations on Mars since 2008 with the Mars Exploration Rover mission's Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity rover, Perseverance rover, and Ingenuity helicopter.

Before joining JPL, she led the NASA Ames Research Center team that developed PLEXIL (Plan Execution Interchange Language) for operating autonomous systems, as well as the development of technology that has been deployed on rovers and human spaceflight projects.

Verma earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Ellen Nielsen, Chevron’s first chief data officer, sees data as the common thread throughout a career that has spanned systems, digital data, procurement, and supply chain. In her current role, she applies what she’s learned to Chevron’s wide-ranging AI and machine learning initiatives, including the use of robots and computer vision to inspect tanks, digital twins to simulate operations, and sensors to monitor equipment in refineries.

On this episode, Ellen shares examples of the integrated energy company's use cases for machine learning and generative AI, and she describes the company’s citizen development program, which puts safe, secured AI and machine learning tools in the hands of employees throughout Chevron. Read the episode transcript here.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

Guest bio:

Ellen Nielsen is the chief data officer at Chevron, where she focuses on creating a data-oriented culture partnered with value-chain thinking. A multidisciplinary leader, Nielsen has over 30 years of global experience as an executive in IT, digital, data, procurement, and supply chain. She has worked with industry leaders in oil and gas, fast-moving consumer goods, automotive, manufacturing, retail, and banking and insurance.

Nielsen is a regular speaker at industry events and has received numerous awards and recognitions, including being named to CDO Magazine’s 2023 Global Data Power Women list. She was also ranked fifth on the 2023 DataIQ 100 list of the most influential people in data in the United States.

She also serves on a variety of boards, including PIDX (Petroleum Industry Data Exchange) International and Women Leaders in Data & AI.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

Miqdad Jaffer brings a background in engineering to his role as director of product for digital marketplace platform Shopify. Users might recognize the commerce platform as one that enables a fast and secure online checkout experience. On the merchant side, Shopify enables business owners to set up e-commerce sites where they can list and sell their products.

 Using generative AI, the platform also now offers merchants the ability to complete administrative tasks much more quickly, including writing product descriptions and customizing their sites. As Miqdad explains, a key to enhancing Shopify’s offerings with generative AI technology is ensuring that users always remain in control. He shares Shopify’s approach to doing this while incorporating cutting-edge tools to help entrepreneurs start, operate, and grow their businesses more efficiently. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Miqdad Jaffer is the director of product for Shopify, where he is responsible for the oversight and development of the company’s AI-powered offerings. He joined the company in 2018 and has overseen the launch of Shopify Magic, its suite of AI-powered tools, and Shop.AI, an AI-powered shopping assistant. Before joining Shopify, Jaffer was the director of product management for the mobile consumer marketplace app Flipp. He has more than 15 years of product development and oversight experience.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.

As an associate professor at Harvard Business School and cofounder of the Customer Intelligence Lab at the school’s Digital Data Design Institute, Ayelet Israeli’s work is focused on how data and technology can inform marketing strategy, as well as how generative AI can be a useful tool in eliminating algorithmic bias. One of the products of her recent work is a paper she coauthored with two Microsoft economists and researchers on how generative AI could be used to simulate focus groups and surveys to determine customer preferences.

Ayelet joins Sam and Shervin to discuss the opportunities and limitations of generative AI in market research. She details how the research was conducted and how artificial intelligence technology could help marketers reduce the time, cost, and complexity associated with traditional customer research methods. Read the episode transcript here.

Guest bio:

Ayelet Israeli is the Marvin Bower Associate Professor of Business Administration in Harvard Business School’s Marketing Unit. She is also the cofounder of the school’s Customer Intelligence Lab at the Digital Data Design Institute. Her research focuses on data-driven marketing, with an emphasis on how businesses can leverage their internal data, customer data, and market data to improve outcomes. Her research interests include retail, pricing strategy, channel management, marketing analytics, and algorithmic bias. Israeli has a Ph.D. in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.

Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.

We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.