Business Analytics & AI for Business

Catalog description

The course will provide an introduction to Business Analytics, with a special emphasis on AI, and specifically, Generative AI. The first part (about 40%) of the course will introduce certain canonical machine learning algorithm, an important part of AI, with Python using small business-related datasets. No knowledge of Python or programming will be assumed and the required codes and concepts will be taught together with the models. This part will be hands-on. The rest of the course will consist of two parts. One part of this will involve general discussion of the AI field talking about other flavors of AI useful for business and broader issues of ethics, societal implications and governance of AI (about 30%). This will be more of a survey with very little actual hands-on content. The second part of this content will focus on generative AI and once again be hands-on (about 30%). In this part, we will cover Large Language Models, prompting techniques and their business applications. Here students will learn basics of prompt engineering, good practices, exploratory data analysis using LLM tools, including generating Python codes for machine learning methods introduced earlier. We also discuss LLM applications in marketing and (at least) one other application area. Students will also do their own individual projects utilizing LLM in business context. Prereq: MBAC 511 .