The Center for Artificial Intelligence in Business

The Center for Artificial Intelligence in Business conducts research and outreach in order to realize the potential of AI through intentional design and governance frameworks centering on human judgment and creativity, working in conjunction with the university’s Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM).

Mission: To facilitate the creation of amazing and safe products and services through intentional AI-enabled design and governance frameworks

Transforming teaching, research and the practice of business

AI is already transforming the way people work, and presents major threats and opportunities for business and society.

At the Smith School, our robust research enterprise explores the capabilities of AI as well as the careful design of incentives and penalties, governance and management strategies, the balancing of short-term and long-term interests, and the future of labor itself. Our learnings can guide industry and government in the responsible and effective use of these new tools for those seeking to formulate a winning AI strategy.

Explore AI's transformative power with us at the Smith School. Our research delves into AI's work impact, governance, and balancing interests. In class, we teach bias navigation, data tracking, and effective human-AI job design. Discover responsible AI innovation and its tomorrow's world implications.

In the classroom, we also lead the way in teaching generative and contextual AI across undergraduate and graduate programs. Students learn how to assess and mitigate the bias in the underlying data and the resulting AI models, track the provenance of data that is training large language models, design jobs and workflows that help workers leverage human capabilities such as empathy, creativity, judgment and leadership in concert with capabilities of AI systems and models and design AI systems to match the role that they will play for a given task.

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2026 UMD Agentic AI Challenge

Event highlights

The Robert H. Smith School of Business hosted the Agentic AI Challenge on April 24, 2026, bringing together student teams to develop and present AI-driven solutions to real-world industry problems. The event featured project presentations, expert judging, collaboration across disciplines and recognition of top-performing teams.

Free Online Certificate in Artificial Intelligence and Career Empowerment

Ready to pivot your career with purpose? This free course from the Robert H. Smith School of Business explores how AI is reshaping industries—and your future. Learn from top professors and industry experts, dive into real-world use cases in marketing, tech, and more, and walk away with practical tools to navigate change, seize new opportunities, and thrive in an AI-driven world.

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Research and Thought Leadership

The Smith School faculty have always made it their priority to stay ahead of emerging technologies as they pertain to business, and AI has shown itself to be applicable to every facet of every industry. From professional baseball to robots to equitable pricing, our top-ranked researchers are working hard to uncover all of the incredible uses AI can serve.

AI Research Briefs

Smith School Revolutionizes AI Job Tracking with AI-Powered Tool

All in on AI

Groundbreaking AI Technology Uses People’s Eye Movements to Predict Their Decisions

Smith School Research Helps Minor League Baseball Players Swing for the Fences

AI-Powered Pricing: Does It Make the Buying Experience More Fair and Equitable?

Design AI Poses a Threat to Human Designers’ Jobs

Is Race a Factor in Facial Recognition Tech?

New Article Explores How AI, Machine Learning Will Change Things

Will Robots Replace Accounting Jobs?

In Accounting Research, a Move Toward the Inductive?

Smith Experts Assess Artificial Intelligence, Weigh in on the Biden Executive Order

New Faculty Hire Brings Expertise in Contextual Artificial Intelligence to Bolster MS and MBA Programs

Utilizing Data-Driven Approaches in Business

AI has always been about ‘intelligence,’ and it is particularly exciting that we are at a point in time where we can realize all this potential for business and society. This will require a level of understanding of AI that most business schools’ MBA curricula currently aren't equipped to provide, but the Smith School’s is.

Balaji Padmanabhan

Center Director and Dean's Professor of Decisions, Operations & Information Technologies

Third Annual Symposium Examines AI’s Opportunities and Challenges

At the 2026 AI Symposium on Design and Governance, speakers examined how artificial intelligence is shaping work, healthcare and software, emphasizing human-centered design, emerging skills, ethical oversight and the responsible integration of AI to augment, not replace, human capabilities.

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AI in Business Education

Professor Padmanabhan joined Poets & Quants for an insightful panel discussion on the importance of evolving business education to build AI literacy.

During this Poets & Quants panel, Professor Padmanabhan described Smith's approach to addressing all of the important areas that MBA students need to be aware of regarding AI: capabilities, design, applications and governance.

When asked how AI will impact recruiting, he shared that MBA students should be thinking about how skills can be demonstrated as AI will help companies have more sophisticated screening in applications beyond scanning a static resume.

AI systems have evolved fast, spurring innovation, increasing productivity and creating new value for society. Yet they also introduce new and profound challenges. We should embrace rather than resist AI, and be aware of the strengths, weaknesses, dangers and opportunities inherent in these technologies.

Prabhudev C. Konana

Dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business