Seminar "Managing Innovation in the Era of AI"

By bringing fundamental change across industries, AI is also expected to challenge and transform the nature of the innovation process and its management. In short, the central proposition is that AI has the potential to revolutionize innovation management by enabling a more effective and efficient innovation process and taking it to the next, more advanced stage. There are several reasons for that, including:

1. AI’s general-purpose nature makes it a method of invention, which opens opportunities for a range of breakthroughs similar to the recent decoding of protein folding.
2. AI allows automation of problem-solving loops, which in turn may permit the focus of the innovation process to move from designing products and services to developing algorithms and providing data.
3. The unique properties of AI – malleability, generativity, and continuous learning through usage – may allow innovation outcomes to continuously improve based on the data collected during its use.

However, as most organisations are still experimenting with AI applying it to discrete problems, and very few are using it at scale, our knowledge of how AI-based innovation management will look like and what changes and impact it will bring to organizations is still sparse. This seminar aims to debate this issue by presenting recent findings from our research about integrating existing knowledge managing the innovation process on one hand, and artificial intelligence on another. We are inviting you to join us in discussing this hot topic on Friday, May 19, at 13:00.

Title of the seminar: Managing Innovation in the Era of AI

Speaker: Associate Professor Zeljko Tekic,

Zeljko Tekic is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Business, HSE University, Moscow. Zeljko earned his PhD in Engineering Management at the University of Novi Sad (Serbia). He was a postdoctoral scholar at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering in Stuttgart and at Freie Universität Berlin. More recently, he was a visiting researcher and a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Zeljko’s research interest evolves around topics at the interplay of digital transformation, open innovation, and startups formation. His latest research focuses on understanding 1) how startups grow using big data instruments; and 2) how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing innovation management. In these two directions, as a part of international research teams, he is investigating how Google Trends data can be used to analyze entrepreneurial phenomena, and how far AI could improve innovation management and what kind of innovation tasks could be assisted by machines.

Discussion moderators: Associate Professor Margarita Gladkova, HSE Graduate School of Business, Department of Business Informatics

When: Friday, May 19

Start at: 13:00

Where: Room 4410, GSB Campus, Shabalovka 26-28

Expected length: 80 minutes (40 for presentation + 40 for discussion)

Language of the event: English

Reference to consider:

1. Tekic, Z., & Füller, J. (2023). Managing innovation in the era of AI. Technology in Society, 102254. DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102254; www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160791X23000593

2. Füller, J., Hutter, K., Wahl, J., Bilgram, V., & Tekic, Z. (2022). How AI revolutionizes innovation management–Perceptions and implementation preferences of AI-based innovators. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 178, 121598. DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121598 www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162522001305

3. Koroteev, D., & Tekic, Z. (2021). Artificial intelligence in oil and gas upstream: Trends, challenges, and scenarios for the future. Energy and AI, 3, 100041. DOI: 10.1016/j.egyai.2020.100041 www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666546820300410

The seminar is organized in the framework of the AI-INNOM research project (Adding Data and Artificial Intelligence into Innovation Equation: Conceptualizing and Exploring AI-Based Innovation Management) funded by the HSE Graduate School of Business.